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Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e104
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Journal of Cleaner Production
journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ jc lepro
Making the most of LCA in technical inter-organisational R&D projects
Gustav Sandin a,b,*, Gunilla Clancy b, Sara Heimersson b, Greg M. Peters b,Magdalena Svanströmb, Marieke ten Hoeve c
a SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Department of Wood Technology, Brinellgatan 4, Box 857, SE-501 05 Borås, SwedenbChalmers University of Technology, Research Group of Chemical Environmental Science, Kemivägen 10, 412 96 Gothenburg, SwedencUniversity of Copenhagen, Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:Received 14 June 2013Received in revised form9 November 2013Accepted 30 January 2014Available online 7 February 2014
Keywords:Life cycle assessmentEnvironmental assessmentProject managementProject characteristicsProject planningResearch and development
* Corresponding author. SP Technical Research Instof Wood Technology, Brinellgatan 4, Box 857, SE-501 0245 5374.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (G. Clancy), sara.heimersson@[email protected] (G.M. Peters), magda(M. Svanström), [email protected] (M. ten Hoeve).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.01.0940959-6526/� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
a b s t r a c t
In technical Research and Development (R&D) projects, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the technologyunder development is sometimes carried out. Particularly in inter-organisational R&D projects, the rolesof LCAs tend to be unclear and arbitrary, and as a consequence, LCA work is not adequately designed forthe needs of the project. There is a need for research on how to choose an appropriate role for LCA insuch projects and how to plan LCA work accordingly.
We have identified some possible roles of LCA in inter-organisational R&D projects and used experi-ences from LCAwork in different such projects to identify four project characteristics that are decisive forwhat roles the LCA can have. The project characteristics are: (i) the project’s potential influence onenvironmental impacts, (ii) the degrees of freedom available for the technical direction of the project, (iii)the project’s potential to provide required input to the LCA, and (iv) access to relevant audiences for theLCA results. We discuss how evaluation of these project characteristics can help project commissioners,project managers and LCA practitioners to deliberately choose appropriate roles of LCA in inter-organisational R&D projects and plan projects for efficient use of LCA.
� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In technical Research and Development (R&D) projects, LifeCycle Assessments (LCAs) are sometimes carried out on the tech-nology under development. For inter-organisational R&D projectsfunded, partly or fully, through publicly funded R&D programmes,such as the European 7th Framework Programme, there is some-times even a requirement to conduct an LCA (Tilche and Galatola,2008). However, according to our experiences as LCA practi-tioners in such projects, requirements or recommendations on theexact roles of LCA are seldom provided. The topic of this paper ishow to clarify the roles of LCA in such projects, and therebyimprove project planning for utilising the full potential of LCA forassessing environmental impacts and influence technology devel-opment and decision-making.
itute of Sweden, Department5 Borås, Sweden. Tel.: þ46 72
[email protected] (G. Sandin),halmers.se (S. Heimersson),[email protected]
1.1. LCA in R&D
LCA is, in principle, a suitable tool to use in technical R&D pro-cesses for environmental assessment of emerging technologies orpreliminary product designs, as ISO 14040 supports an iterativeprocess of upgrading the LCA as new data becomes available (SIS,2006a,b). Much research has been conducted on how to carry outLCAs and other sustainability assessments in R&D processes (e.g.Askhamet al., 2012; Byggeth et al., 2007; Clancy et al., 2013; Collado-Ruiz and Ostad-Ahman-Ghobari, 2013; Colodel et al., 2009; Deva-nathan et al., 2010; Fleischer et al., 2001; Manmek et al., 2010; Ny,2006; Othman et al., 2010; Rebitzer, 2005; Vinodh andRathod, 2010;Waage, 2007). Much of this literature suggests screening or simpli-fiedLCAs for theassessmentof emerging technologiesorpreliminaryproduct designs, or approaches for use in specific case studies. Cri-tiques of using LCA in R&D are also found, for example, Millet et al.(2007) concluded that LCA is not an appropriate tool for the prod-uct design process (typically a late phase in product development).They did not, however, focus on earlier stages of product develop-ment or inter-organisational contexts and did not discuss LCA rolesbeyondguiding thedevelopmentprocess (we list otherpossible rolesin Section 3.1). There is also more general (i.e. not LCA specific)researchon considerationof environmental issues inR&D, oftenwith
G. Sandin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e10498
a focus on intra-organisational contexts. See Baumann et al. (2002)for a review on early research in intra-organisational “environ-mental product development”, or Johansson (2006) for a study oncharacteristics of intra-organisational R&D projects in which envi-ronmental concerns are addressed. Little attention has, however,been put on how to apply LCA in inter-organisational R&D projectsethe topic of this paper.
1.2. The context of publicly funded inter-organisational R&Dprojects
A common setting for LCA work in Europe is publicly fundedinter-organisational R&D projects, for example funded by nationalgovernments or by the European Union (EU) in the 7th FrameworkProgramme. Inmany suchprojects, sustainability is one of the stateddriving forces, and therefore it is relatively common to carry outLCAs, often as part of a wider sustainability assessment. However,the primary focus of the project work is typically on technical R&D,and LCAwork is typically allocated aminor share of the funding. Theprojects often involve a mix of universities, firms and research in-stitutes from different countries and knowledge fields, with varyingreasons for joining the project and various expectations on theproject outcome. This contributes to a high degree of organisationaland cultural complexity. Complexity is further enhanced because ofmultiple research activities being carried out to solve different as-pects of a technical problem, in which it becomes difficult to get anoverview and complete understanding of how different activitieswill interact and contribute towards the aim of the project. Theseprojects are often also characterised by a focus on specific technicalideas or solutions, as it is required to present a well-developedtechnical idea or solution to attract the funding. Once the fundinghas been secured, the application text (including milestones anddeliverables) and the competences of the project team often setlimitations to what can be done in the project.
1.3. Aim and content
Thehighcomplexityand the technological lock-indescribedaboveput high demands on pre-project planning. According to our experi-ences from such projects, pre-project planning of LCA work can begreatly improved. In particular, the roles of the LCA tend to be unclearand arbitrary, sometimes resulting indiffering andeven contradictingexpectations on the LCA outcome among project partners, and LCAwork not being optimally performed in relation to its potential indifferent projects. This may largely be a result of the strong focus ontechnical R&Dwork among those initiating and leading the projectseLCA becomes an add-on and does not receive appropriate attention.Even with vast experience and strong negotiating skills, the LCApractitioner may be forced to accept a reality inwhich the role of theLCA is greatly reduced in comparison to its full potential to assessenvironmental impacts and influence technology development anddecision-making. There is thus a need to increase awareness of thepotential of LCA, facilitate the selection of appropriate LCA roles andformulate guidance of how to plan the project accordingly.
In the present paper, we identify project characteristics whichare decisive for the roles of LCA in the above described projectcontext. We discuss how these characteristics relate to our expe-riences of LCA work in five specific projects, whereof one project isused as a starting point for a more elaborate discussion on how theevaluation of the project characteristics can be used in practice. Thepurpose of the paper is thus to help project commissioners, projectmanagers and LCA practitioners to clarify which LCA roles that areavailable for their project, choose appropriate roles based on theneeds or requirements of project commissioners and participants,and plan the project for better use of LCA. Many of the presented
findings are almost certainly available as tacit knowledge amongstLCA practitioners, but there is a need to formalise this type of meta-knowledge existing in the LCA community into written researchfindings in order to make it more accessible and further improvethe use of LCA in practice.
Some of our recommendations are similar to the ISO 14044recommendations on how to define the goal and scope of an LCA(SIS, 2006a). Our recommendations are, however, about how toplan projects for better use of LCA, preferably already in puttingtogether the project team and writing the project application, aprocess normally occurring prior to the goal and scope definition.Besides, the findings are addressed not only to LCA practitionersbut also to others involved in project management, who in generalare not familiar with ISO 14044.
Although the findings are primarily derived from experiences inEuropeanpublicly funded inter-organisational projects, thefindingsmay also be of interest for privately funded as well as non-Europeaninter-organisational projects, as is further discussed in Section 3.4.
The terminology used in the paper in terms of roles of LCA intechnical R&D projects is illustrated in Fig. 1. The paper strives tohelp project managers and LCA practitioners identify the availableroles for their project out of all possible roles and guide them inplanning the project in accordance with chosen roles. It is assumedthat if roles are deliberately chosen, it is more likely that they can befulfilled.
2. Method
To provide practical guidance on how to choose appropriateLCA roles in inter-organisational R&D projects and plan the projectaccordingly, we explore the literature and our experience of workin these types of projects. In particular, we analyse the five projectsdescribed in Section 2.2, but we also draw on our experience frommany other similar projects (e.g. Alvarez-Gaitan et al., 2013;Fröling et al., 2006; Johansson et al., 2008; Peters et al., 2011).The methodology applied in this analysis is described in Section2.1.
2.1. Methodology
Analysis and data collection were done iteratively and in par-allel, a procedure that can be described as a constant comparativeapproach (Glaser, 1965; Silverman, 2005). The iterative procedureinvolved the following steps:
� Identification of the many possible roles of LCA in technical R&Dprojects, using (i) literature, (ii) written descriptions of the fiveprojects described in 2.2, and (iii) experiences of LCA practi-tioners (the authors). This way of using different types of datasources to get multiple perspectives on a research topic is calledtriangulation (see e.g. Denzin, 1978; Peters et al., 2013).
� Identification of the chosen roles, explicit or implicit, accordingto pre-project descriptions of project work and the roles thatwere partly or fully realised for the LCAs in the five projects. Thefollowing data sources were utilised in the analysis: (i) writtendescriptions of the projects and their outcomes e ranging fromearly versions of project proposals to the final description ofwork and subsequently updated detailed project plans and re-sults e and (ii) hands-on experience of participation in thewriting process for the project proposals and of participation asLCA practitioners in the projects.
� Identification of the project characteristics that support or limitthe availability of certain roles, by exploring reasons for whysome LCA roles were not realised in the five projects and whyother roles were partly or fully realised.
Fig. 1. Terminology used in this paper for the roles of LCA in R&D projects.
Table 1Description of the five studied projects.
Project Aim Number ofpartners
Type of funding Total financialscope(million V)
Duration(years)
Requirement to carry out LCAaccording to.
LCA work partof a widersustainabilityassessment
Project call Pre-project descriptionsof project work
A Develop wood-based textilefibre
10 Public (national) andprivate
2e3 3 No Yes Yes
B Develop coating and adhesivefor wood
11 Public (European) andprivate
2e3 3 No Yes Yes
C Develop and evaluatewastewater and sludgetreatment
18 Public (European) 3e4 3 Yes Yes Yes
D Develop wood-based absorbentfor diaper
3 Public (national) andprivate
w4 4 No Yes Yes
E Develop agricultural wastetreatment
13 Public (national) andprivate
w4 5 No Yes No
1 “System analysis” in this case referred to a regional material flux analysis ofsome key substances.
G. Sandin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e104 99
In this study, researchers thus analysed activities in which theyare themselves involved. We therefore recognise the subjectivenature of the research. That the outcome of the research dependson the position of the researcher is typical for qualitative research(Denzin and Lincoln, 2005), and it puts limitations on the devel-opment of generalised conclusions based on the results. However,tomaximise transferability, we try to be clear on the setting and ourrole in the projects. As comparisons are central for theorising aboutqualitative data (Silverman, 2005), broader generalisations can bedeveloped by comparing our experiences, as presented in thisstudy, with experiences of others in similar contexts (in Section 3.4we compare with some experiences of LCA practitioners outsideEurope). Another limitation of this study is that most of our expe-riences relate to few of the possible roles of LCA in R&D projects andto projects of similar scope. In later sections, we discuss theselimitations and recommend further research that can enhance thetransferability of the generated theory.
2.2. Studied projects
The projects studied in detail are European publicly fundedinter-organisational technical R&D projects, a context introduced inSection 1.2. The scopes of these projects are summarised in Table 1.In all projects, partners include universities and firms. Projects Aand B also involve research institutes. Pre-project description ofwork refers to any description of project content or project planthat was present at the start of the project.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Roles of LCA in technical R&D projects
Table 2 lists the identified possible roles of LCA in technical R&Dprojects. The list is based onwritten descriptions of the five projects
studied in detail, experiences from LCA work in these and similarprojects, and literature such as the ILCD handbook (EuropeanCommission, 2010), the ISO 14040 standard (SIS, 2006b) and anLCA textbook (Baumann and Tillman, 2004). Here is an example of awritten description from one of the studied projects: “An initial LCAwill be carried out early in the project. This early LCA will togetherwith a system analysis1 help identify processes and hot spots thatare of major concern from an environmental point of view anddirect the efforts of the other research components to improve thetechnologies”.
Roles of LCA in technical R&D projects have been taken to be asubset of all possible roles of LCA in all different contexts. Rolesdeemed irrelevant for R&D projects include, for example, contri-bution to policy development or public procurement, generation ofcampaign ideas or support for life style changes. The possible roleswere here classified as “internal” or “external”, depending onwhether the main audience is project participants or stakeholdersexternal to the project. Internal and external roles may put verydifferent demands on project planning, in particular in terms ofcommunication of LCA results, as is further discussed in Sections3.2 and 3.3.
Table 3 describes the roles of the LCAs in the five projectsstudied in detail: roles according to the project descriptions avail-able at project start, and partly or fully realised roles in the projects,as identified by the LCA practitioners at the time of writing (pro-jects C and E are still on-going projects at the time of writing). Thatthe LCA work of each project contributed to LCA knowledge,although only one pre-project plan described this as a role, isbecause the LCA practitioners (the authors) in all cases wanted touse the LCA work for research.
Table 2Possible roles of LCA in technical R&D projects.
Description of role Potential audience of LCA results
Guide technical R&DGuide the technical R&D in the project with respect to environmental aspects, e.g. screening of
proposed technical solutions for identifying environmental hot spots that require furtherattention or for selecting which technical paths to pursue.
Project participants Internal roles
Develop life-cycle thinkingFacilitate the development of life cycle thinking around the developed technology in the project
team, for more holistic thinking and awareness of life cycle considerations (not necessarilylimited to the environmental dimension).
Support scale-upSupport scale-up of the technology to pilot plant or commercial scale, e.g. by providing proof of
the environmental viability (or non-viability) of the developed technology as support indecision-making regarding scale-up, or by providing environmental data that can supportrisk assessment, environmental impact assessments or efforts to affect policy, legislation orother external barriers or drivers (e.g. regarding recycling schemes) to pave the road for thedeveloped technology.
Firms within or outside the project,funding agencies, investors, policy-makers, etc.
External roles
Direct future R&D activitiesIdentify where further development and optimisation is needed after the project, e.g. to direct
future efforts for optimisation of the technology’s environmental performance or to steerfuture funding (both in terms of the focus of calls for applications from funding agencies andof writing applications for funding of research).
Firms within or outside the project,researchers, funding agencies, etc.
Market technologyCommunicate the environmental performance of the developed technology externally for
marketing purposes.
Customers, other supply-chain actors,investors, etc.
Demonstrate inclusion of environmental concernsDemonstrate that environmental concerns are addressed in the R&D process, e.g. for
environmental auditing or marketing purposes (for communication with external actors,such as customers, or for creating a certain internal corporate culture).
Shareholders and employees of firmsinvolved in the project, customers,investors, non-governmentalorganisations, environmental auditors,etc.
Contribute to LCA knowledgeContribute to knowledge in the research and LCA communities, e.g. by using the developed
technology as a case study which can either be used for developing LCA practices (as done inthe present paper) or for enhancing the knowledge of the environmental impacts of thedeveloped technology and related technologies.
Researchers, LCA practitioners, etc.
Fulfil requirementFulfil the requirement of the commissioner or funding agency that an LCA has to be performed in
the project.
Funding agencies, projectcommissioners
G. Sandin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e104100
3.2. Project characteristics
In this section, we suggest and explain four project character-istics that we experience as decisive for the roles LCA can have inthe studied project context. The identification of the project char-acteristics stem from our experiences from the project context, inparticular in terms of role realisation in the five projects studied indetail (see Table 3). Further examples of specific experiences aregiven in connection to each characteristic. These experiences alsoserve as illustrations of how evaluation of the project characteris-tics can clarify available roles and help select roles, and thereby
Table 3Roles of LCA in the studied projects.
Project Roles of LCA according to pre-project descriptions of projectwork
Partly or fully realised roles ofLCA in project as experiencedby LCA practitioner
A No roles identified Guide technical R&D; supportscale-up; contribute to LCAknowledge
B No roles identified Develop life cycle thinking;contribute to LCA knowledge
C Guide technical R&D;contribute to LCA knowledge;fulfil requirement
Guide technical R&D;contribute to LCA knowledge;fulfil requirement
D Guide technical R&D Guide technical R&D; developlife-cycle thinking; Supportscale-up; contribute to LCAknowledge
E Guide technical R&D; supportscale-up
Contribute to LCA knowledge
improve project planning and prevent or manage typical issuesrelated to LCAwork in the discussed context (of which some issueswere discussed in Section 1.3).
Project characteristic 1: the project’s potential influence onenvironmental impacts
This characteristic concerns whether the technology underdevelopment is a minor or major contributor to the environmentalimpacts of a product’s life cycle (compare Xwith Yand Z in Fig. 2) orto what extent the total life cycle impacts of a product can beinfluenced by the technology (compare Y with Z in Fig. 2). If thetechnology’s potential influence on life cycle environmental im-pacts is limited, this will limit the influence that the development ofthe technology can have on environmental impacts and therebylimit the relevance of some LCA roles, such as guiding technicalR&D.
This characteristic determines whether there is a need to planfor an early screening LCA of the proposed development routes orto plan for delivery of data to the LCA from technical R&D activities.For example, in project B, it turned out that when one of thedeveloped technologies e a wood coating e is applied in a productlife cyclee awoodenwindow framee the product’s environmentalimpacts do not depend much on the resource use and emissionsdirectly attributable to the coating (in this case, to the production ofthe coating) (Sandin et al., 2012). Instead, impacts are moredependent on the functional properties of the coating and howthese influence the service life performance of the window frame(as in situation Z in Fig. 2). This means that the coating productiondoes not need to be very accurately mapped for carrying out areliable LCA of the product system of which the coating is part.
Fig. 2. The environmental impacts directly attributable to the technology developed inthe project (e.g. impacts due to its production or waste treatment) can be a major (�)or minor (Y and Z) contributor to the total life cycle impacts of a product. Even if thedirectly attributable impacts are minor, the technology can still have a significant in-fluence on the product’s life cycle impacts (Z), e.g. by influencing the product’s tech-nical properties and/or service life.
Fig. 3. The available degrees of freedom for the project’s technical direction illustratedas a tree. At position a, a project has many possible and widely differing technicalsolutions (1e7) available, thereby many degrees of freedom and potentially manyopportunities for LCA to influence the R&D process. At position b, a project has fewtechnical solutions (1 and 2) available and thereby few opportunities for LCA influence.
G. Sandin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e104 101
Besides, it is of limited value to have LCA results available whenoptimising the coating, as the overall aim of the project e toimprove the functional properties of the coating e is the primaryfactor also for environmental optimisation. Thus, providing guid-ance to the development of the coating formulation andmanufacturing process may not be a relevant LCA role in such anR&D project. This is one example of when an early evaluation of thepotential influence on environmental impacts, preferably evenbefore the project application is written, could have clarified therole of LCA, improved project planning and mitigated some of theexperienced issues, such as unclear expectations on LCA work andunclear audiences of LCA results.
In project C, aimed at developing and evaluating differentwastewater and sludge treatment technologies, a screening LCAwas carried out in the first half of the project (Heimersson et al.,2012). This LCA showed that the developed technologies are sig-nificant contributors to the environmental impacts of the technicalsystems they are part of (as in situation X in Fig. 2). Apart fromrevealing what to focus the technical R&D on in order to reduceenvironmental impacts, the LCA showed that it is worthwhile touse LCA for guiding the project, thus it helped in planning thesubsequent technical R&D and the interaction between LCA workand the technical R&D (e.g. timing of deliverables of LCA data).Project D, aimed at developing new wood-based absorbent mate-rials for a diaper, provides an additional example of when an earlyscreening LCA showed that the project could considerably influ-ence environmental impacts, as is discussed in Clancy et al. (2010).
In none of the above examples was the evaluation of thedeveloped technologies’ potential influence on the life cycle envi-ronmental impacts carried out as part of the pre-project planning. Ifthis cannot be done due to the structure of the project funding ordue to lack of crucial knowledge, the initial project plan shouldinclude a screening LCA early on in the project (as was done in thesecond example above), and allow the project plan to be flexibleenough to adapt to the findings of this LCA. Whether or not this ispossible depends, to some extent, on the project characteristicdiscussed in the following subsection.
Project characteristic 2: the degrees of freedom available for thetechnical direction of the project
This characteristic concerns to what extent the direction of theproject is fixed at the start of the project or at the time when LCAresults can be expected to be delivered. This may limit the oppor-tunities for the LCA to influence the technical direction of theproject and thereby limit the availability of some roles. Fig. 3 il-lustrates this characteristic.
Some limitations on the availability of degrees of freedom wereexperienced in all five projects. As was discussed in Section 1.2, thisappears to be typical for the studied project contexts because of the
funding setup and a lock-in to the pre-project plan and the com-petences recruited to the project team. Another reason for tech-nological lock-in can, for example, be ownership of a particularindustrial technology by a project partner.
An example of how few available degrees of freedom canconfine the role of LCA was apparent in project E, in which thechosen role of the LCA was to guide the R&D process to achievemore environmentally benign technologies for agricultural wastetreatment. However, because it was assumed that the LCA wasdependant on data delivered from other parts of the project, LCAwork did not begin until nine months into the three-year project.Therefore, the LCA could not provide a first estimate of environ-mental impacts until more than a year into the project, when manydegrees of freedom had already been lost (as at position b in Fig. 3),and it proved difficult to have any real influence on the technicaldirection of the project. In other words: the chosen role of the LCAwas not an available role due to the way the project had beenplanned. A proper evaluation of the available degrees of freedomcould have shown the need for early LCA results, and therebyimproved project planning and turned the chosen role into anavailable role. This could have mitigated several of the issuesencountered in the project, such as unrealistic expectations on thepossibilities of the LCA to guide the project and an unrealistic timeframe for LCA deliverables.
Project characteristic 3: the project’s potential to provide requiredinput to the LCA
This characteristic is about whether or not key inputs to the LCAdepend on decisions taken or results obtained in the project. Forexample, for LCA work to proceed, other project participants mayneed to calculate or measure inventory data, or unveil or decide ontechnically feasible routes that should be further investigated withLCA. These aspects may, in turn, be dependent on the progress indifferent parts of the project, or the active participation of a certainpartner at a certain time in the project. Depending on the prospectsfor achieving the necessary inputs, the availability of some LCAroles may be limited. Fig. 4 illustrates this project characteristic.
In projects B, C and D, LCA work was clearly dependent on sig-nificant project progress in order to generate relevant LCA results.However, the LCA practitioners were still expected to present re-sults early on in the projects, which created tension in the projectsas the LCA practitioner asked for data that was not yet available. Forexample, in project D, the LCAwas restricted to studying an existingproduct with a simple exchange of a conventional material with a
Fig. 4. For LCA work to proceed, it may be necessary to provide inputs from other partsof the project. Required input may for instance be technical specifications on, or in-ventory data for, the studied system.
G. Sandin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e104102
theoretical model material instead of a new product concept thatcould take full advantage of the newly developed material. Thislimited the opportunities to provide relevant guidance, and createdtension due to differing expectations both on the LCA and on thetechnical R&D work. A proper evaluation of the project before or atan early stage of the project could have clarified the LCA’s de-pendency on project progress, and thereby avoided unrealistic ex-pectations on LCA delivery and improved the planning for LCA datacollection.
Project characteristic 4: access to relevant audiences for the LCAresults
The fourth characteristic concerns whether or not it is possibleto disseminate the LCA results to relevant audiences. For example,this can be limited by confidentiality concerns related to disclosingLCA results or by which actors that are involved as project partic-ipants (factors that in turn can depend on whether the developedtechnologies are close to commercialisation or not). Restrictedavailability of relevant audiences may limit the opportunities forcommunicating LCA results externally (e.g. to customers or theresearch community) or internally (e.g. based on how communi-cation between different work packages is planned for and facili-tated) and thereby limit the availability of certain roles.
In project E, the description of work stated that LCA resultsshould be used both internally for guiding the project and exter-nally to support decisions in industry and in policy-making. Notlong into the LCA work, it became clear that neither of these au-diences were available for the intended purposes. As explainedabove, due to the planned timing of LCA deliverables it was notpossible to communicate results internally for guiding the project.Due to unfortunate external factors, the industry partners involvedin the project all dropped out and therefore decisions in industrycould not be supported by the LCA work, at least not by internalcommunication in the project. Moreover, there were no specificconnections between project participants and external policy-makers and neither were there incentives to communicate LCAresults with such groups. Instead, the research community becamethe main audience (through publishing results in peer-reviewedjournals). If the access to suitable audiences had been evaluatedwhen planning the project and safeguarded throughout the project,appropriate communicationwith relevant audiences for the chosenroles could have been ensured.
3.3. Recommendations for evaluation of project characteristics
We propose that, as early as possible in the planning of inter-organisational R&D projects (ideally before the project applicationis finalised), the project management, the LCA practitioner and anyproject participant with pre-knowledge of the technology’s envi-ronmental impacts should be engaged in evaluating the above
listed project characteristics. Based on this evaluation, a deliberatedecision on the appropriate roles of LCA in the particular projectshould be made, and the project should be planned accordingly. Asa suggestion, planning includes the timing of LCA activities inrelation to data delivery from other work in the project, acommunication plan for disseminating LCA results (internally and/or externally) and clearly defined audiences for the LCA results. If,after evaluation of the project characteristics, it turns out that thedesired roles are not available, the project managers need to makesure that barriers to the desirable roles are removed. For example,barriers could be removed by reformulating the aim of the project,inviting new participants to the project or reworking the confi-dentiality agreements. Alternatively, the project planners will haveto convince those that make the request that the desired roles areunavailable e a process sometimes called “expectation manage-ment” in management and organisation theory (Bosch-Sijtsema,2007). The proposed procedure can improve the use of LCA in theproject, help in creating realistic expectations and, thereby, limitdisappointment and stress in the project team.
Due to the uniqueness of each project, we do not believe it isfeasible to provide a detailed and generic roadmap of how toevaluate the project characteristics, with for example a set ofquestions that provides the project planners with an unequivocalrecommendation on suitable LCA roles. Instead, in the followingsubsection, we discuss how the project characteristics could beevaluated in a specific situation, by using our experience fromproject B. The evaluation of the project characteristics can be seenas a development and specification of the more general questionsrecommended by Baitz et al. (2013) for applying LCA in industry(“when are the results needed?”, “to whom will the results becommunicated?” and “are all the [pieces of] information neededavailable internally?”).
3.3.1. Evaluation of the project characteristics e the case of projectB
Project B aimed at developing coatings and adhesives forwooden building elements. The pre-project description of workstated that a sustainability assessment, including an LCA, was to becarried out on the technology to be developed, but it said nothingabout the role or purpose of the sustainability assessment. How-ever, the LCA practitioner perceived that there were implicit ex-pectations from some partners that the LCA was to guide thetechnical R&D. The LCA practitioner himself wanted to contribute tothe other parts of project work and also contribute to LCA knowl-edge. Although several roles were partly or fully fulfilled (seeTable 3), the LCA practitioner perceived that the LCA work couldhave been carried out more efficiently and had a greater impact ifroles would have been more deliberately chosen and the projectmore deliberately planned in accordance with the chosen roles.Below, we discuss how this could have been achieved by an eval-uation of the project characteristics.
An evaluation of project characteristic 1e the project’s potentialinfluence on environmental impacts e could have been carried outbased on the knowledge of those involved in project planning and,if necessary, a review of previous LCAs on relevant building ele-ments. As discussed in Section 3.3, this would probably have shownthat the environmental impacts of coatings and adhesives areinsignificant compared to the life cycle impacts of products they aretypically a part of, and that it thus is of limited value to use LCAresults for guiding the technical direction of the project. Therefore,LCA work does not need to be integrated with the technical R&Dprocess, unless required to fulfil other roles.
As guiding the technical direction would not be a relevant role,project characteristic 2 e the degrees of freedom available for thetechnical direction of the project e would have been deemed
G. Sandin et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 70 (2014) 97e104 103
unnecessary to evaluate. However, when evaluating project char-acteristic 3e the project’s potential to provide required input to theLCAe it would have become clear that the industrial partners in theproject have to decide on the technical specification of the systemthat is to be assessed in the LCA (e.g. coating and adhesive for-mulations, and a typical building element they are to be used for)and provide some of the inventory data needed for the LCA. Thiswould have clarified the types of deliverables that have to be in theproject plan for efficient LCAwork. It would also have been possibleto conclude that these deliverables are not dependent on thetechnical progress in the project.
An evaluation of project characteristic 4 e access to relevantaudiences for the LCA results e would have revealed some re-strictions on disclosing LCA data and that the LCA practitionerneeds to be cautious on this when publishing results. No otherrestrictions on access to internal or external audiences wouldprobably have been revealed. For example, there were no re-strictions on data disclosure within the project team and all part-ners were to be involved throughout the full duration of the project.
Based on the evaluation of the project characteristics, thepossible LCA roles listed in Table 2 could have been narrowed downto the available ones. From this, LCA roles could have been chosenbased on the wants and needs of project participants. In addition to“contribute to LCA knowledge” (which was a role of interest for theLCA practitioner), it could also have been relevant to consider theroles “develop life cycle thinking” (for the training of the projectteam), “support scale up” (e.g. to prove the environmental viabilityof the technology after the project in order to acquire funding forfurther research or for scale-up), “direct future R&D activities” (e.g.by inducing ideas for future R&D projects among project partners)and “market technology” (e.g. to support technology diffusion inthe construction industry).
Based on the evaluation of project characteristic and the delib-erate selection of LCA roles, a project plan could have been set up tofacilitate the chosen roles, with clear deadlines for deliverables ofLCA data from other parts of the projects and for delivery of LCAresults. To facilitate this, it could have been decided that the LCApractitioner is to present LCAmethodology and LCA data needs on aproject meeting well before these deadlines (this was actually donein the project, but with more deliberately chosen LCA roles, agreedon in the project, it could have been done more efficiently and witha better understanding of the purpose among project participants).
This is an example of how an evaluation of the proposed projectcharacteristics could proceed, and how meaningful and realisticroles and some key deliverables and deadlines can be set up alreadyduring pre-project planning (this would be particularly important ifa guidance role is chosen, as this would require a high degree ofintegration of LCA work with other parts of the project). Thisdeliberate planning process should vouch for a good understandingof the required input to the LCA, clear expectations on the LCAoutcome and that LCA work can be carried out efficiently, a goodbasis for avoiding unnecessary stress and tension in the projectteam and utilising the full potential of the LCA.
3.4. Testing the universality of the findings
To test the universality of the findings, statements on similarR&D projects were gathered from colleagues outside Europe. InEurope, especially in Scandinavia, it appears to be common tointegrate LCA work into R&D projects. Colleagues in the UnitedStates (Thoma, 2012), Canada (Charron-Doucet, 2012) and Australia(Crossin, 2012; Horne, 2012) were approached to test whether thisis a Scandinavian or European phenomenon. In each case, LCA re-searchers concurred that the integration of LCA in technical R&Dprojects is unusual: “LCA results are more often used for supporting
environmental communication than an ecodesign approach”(Charron-Doucet, 2012). This statement adheres more with theexternal roles of LCA. “.generally there is not integration withbroader environmental/engineering research” (Horne, 2012)although there is a small and increasing proportion of projects withthat integration (Crossin, 2012; Thoma, 2012). The correspondentssuggested that the degree of integration is driven by the fundingmechanisms and expectations of the research commissioners.
Itmayalso be significant that governmentplays a relativelyminorrole in funding non-European universities, a variable noted previ-ously in terms of its relevance for the character of LCA research(Peters, 2009). In 2008 (the last year for which this data was re-ported), non-government funding as a proportion of total universityfunding was 63, 55, 20, 11 and 4% in the United States, Australia, theEU, Sweden and Denmark, respectively (OECD, 2011). One can un-derstand that to ensure academic funding is being used in wayswhich benefit industry, Scandinavian and European fund managerswould direct academics to join in industrial R&D projects, while thenon-European tradition of allowing industry to play a greater role inthe provision of university funding is an alternative means to thisend. Consistent with this, we observe that government bodies suchas the European Research Council, the Danish Council for StrategicResearch, the SwedishGovernmental Agency for Innovation Systems(VINNOVA) and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic EnvironmentalResearch (Mistra) often specify that environmental systems analysisskillsmust be a part of the project consortia applying for large grantswith an industrial R&D component. On the other hand, for example,the Australian Research Council, the major government funder ofresearch that fulfils the corresponding roles of all these EuropeanR&D funding bodies (and some others) at Australian universities, isprimarily a manager of open rather than directed calls.
The above evidence suggests that the roles of LCA in inter-organisational R&D projects can be confined not only by the pro-posed project characteristics, but also by the nature of the fundingand traditions among funding agencies. Therefore, more wide-spread knowledge of the possible roles of LCA in R&D projectscould possibly expand the use of LCA in funding contexts inwhich ithas not traditionally been used. This would expand the applicabilityof this paper’s findings.
4. Concluding remarks
In this paper, we have used our experiences as LCA practitionersin inter-organisational technical R&D projects (in particular fivespecific ones) for identifying and describing project characteristicswhich are decisive for the roles LCAs can have in such projects.Thus, real cases were used to generate theory. The potential use ofthis theory in practice was then illustrated by a discussion of howits application could have improved the planning in one of thestudied projects.
As noted in Section 2, others’ experiences will be necessary totest and discuss the usefulness and transferability of the generatedtheory. Primarily, we recommend application in contexts similar tothe projects studied in this paper, i.e. publicly funded inter-organisational technical R&D projects. However, there are mostcertainly findings that can be valuable also in other contexts. As ourmain experiences are limited to a few of the described LCA rolesand to projects of similar scope (e.g. in terms of financial scope andtechnology areas), it would be particularly valuable if the findingswere tested in other project scopes and in projects inwhich LCA hasother roles. Furthermore, research is warranted to find out underwhat circumstances other assessment tools are more suitable thanLCA for fulfilling certain roles, and on whether different proposedmethodologies for screening or simplified LCAs are better suited forcertain roles than others.
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The above proposed research can build on the findings pre-sented in this paper and contribute to creating a solid body ofknowledge on how to improve the use of LCA (and other environ-mental assessment tools) in inter-organisational R&D projects. Thiscan, ultimately, contribute to reducing the environmental impactsof technologies.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the funders of their research relevantto this paper: the European Commission, the Swedish Govern-mental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA), the KnowledgeFoundation (KK-stiftelsen), the Swedish Foundation for StrategicResearch (SSF), RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, the SwedishFoundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) and theDanish Council for Strategic Research.
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