Beyond Cradle-to-Gate: Embracing Full Life Cycle Assessment for comprehensive Eco-Design solutions

Sustainable development is key to political and strategic agendas in the current economy. The rising demand for eco-friendly products and stricter environmental regulations drive companies to conduct Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and adopt sustainability action plans. LCA scientifically quantifies the environmental impacts of products throughout their life cycle, hence being a powerful tool for sustainability efforts. Companies are increasingly using LCA to include environmental information in their product design as a prospective strategy, in addition to analysing current product systems retrospectively. Indeed, LCA results drive the choice of eco-design solutions, which often refer to improved durability and recyclability of products. In both cases, the intent is to distribute the impacts of the product manufacturing, reduce the per-use footprint and promote an efficient use of resources. Such a perspective requires the inclusion of the usage and, possibly, end-of-life stages in the LCA. Expanding the system boundaries raises challenges related to the allocation approach, functional unit and inventory setup.
This study discusses the eco-design of refractory products, i.e. ceramic materials able to withstand high temperatures in harsh conditions. The cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-grave LCA of two refractory bricks intended for the same application in steel production are conducted and compared. The system and functional unit related to the usage in steelmaking are defined based on theoretical models, laboratory data on materials’ thermal and corrosion performance, and real plant data on operating conditions.