The other day, I just started reading “How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything” by Mike Berners-Lee (because that is what I do for fun), when I came across a very important point he made. I thought it would be a good way to click off this blog.
He talks about perspective when looking for the carbon footprint of things or activities, and of course alludes you to prioritize air travel over paper towels or air dryers. And this, is something we all know, and know to be true for almost all problem solving, and yet, we miss this so often. So, it is time to formalize this into LCA so that it becomes an integral part of how you attack the environmental impact of your products and/or services.
Setting Priorities – Intuition as an Innovation Tool
LCAs can, in some cases come up with surprising results. Given that, does it make sense to go after what appear to be the “big ticket items” first? Yes, it still does. Start with activities or components such as the following:
- Those that have wildly larger footprints (products, assemblies or services involved in air transport), or,
- Use exotic materials (such as batteries),
- Items with heavier mass,
- Components manufactured using specialized techniques
- Components that require specialized packaging or handling, etc.
Use intuition to arrive at a classification metric or scheme, and start at the top, so that you don’t miss out on 5000 metric tons of CO2, trying to chase something that puts out 50.
Reference:
- Berners-Lee, Mike. (2011). How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint Of Everything Vancouver, Canada: Greystone.
- Image, Courtesy: https://picjumbo.com/download/?d=HNCK5096.jpg&n=some-office-things
