Ecolabels have emerged as one of the main tools of green marketing. Although a great deal of effort has been invested in making them more effective and efficient, the market share of ecolabelled products is still low, partly because they have been addressed mainly to 'green' consumers. In a theoretical exposition of marketing theory, we find that green marketing could learn from conventional marketing in discovering other means than labelling to promote green products. Examples include addressing a wider range of consumers, working with the positioning strategies of price, place and promotion and actively engaging in market creation.

Understanding product circularity as "three-dimensional" could anchor the Circular Economy to common principles while affording its followers flexibility about how to measure it in their specific sectors and disciplines and within their organization's means. Inspired by a heuristic developed for the urban planning profession to cope with the inherent conflicts of Sustainable Development, this article argues that measuring product-level circularity should consider ways to achieve (1) high material recirculation, (2) high utilization, and (3) high endurance in products and service offerings.Achieving all three dimensions ensures that material flowing through the economy is recovered from prior use phases, that it is used intensely, and that it retains its value in spite of exogenous changes. The article argues further that these three dimensions ought to be measured and reported separately rather than as a composite metric and that certain applications will have opportunities to improve circularity through certain dimensions better than others. The article also explains how researchers at RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden AB) are working with industry and government partners to measure the three dimensions and how diverse actors interested in the Circular Economy can use the three dimensions to take the first steps in their transition to circularity.

Despite the desirability of a life cycle perspective and many attempts to facilitate life cycle assessment (LCA), industry has been relatively slow to adopt LCA. In this research, we thus set out to investigate the underpinnings of LCA practice in industry. A literature review shows that the present understanding is that 'structural' conditions such as location and sector determine the use of LCA in industry. However, a fi eld study of two companies in the Swedish forest product industry (thus in the same sector and country) indicates that LCA practice is shaped more by individual preferences and chance events. Our results imply a more interpretive understanding of LCA practice than has been put forward by previous research. The two types of understanding are discussed and their implications for practitioners in industry, organizations promoting the use of LCA and further research are presented.When LCA was introduced in industry, many 'technical problems' of conducting and using the tool came into focus. Researchers set out to address these problems; LCI (life cycle inventory) databases were created to ease data collection, a format for handling the data within these databases was developed and tools and methods were designed to ease calculation procedures (Baumann and Tillman, 2004). It was recognized that there was a need for a uniform 'harmonized' LCA methodology to make it possible to use LCA in areas such as comparative environmental marketing (Baumann and Tillman, 2004). Starting in 1993, a whole series of ISO standards for LCA was developed. The fi rst standard (ISO 14040-Life Cycle Assessment: Principles and Frameworks) was published in 1997.Over the years, much effort has been put into developing tools and methods to reduce the time spent on data collection and calculation in LCA studies. Researchers and practitioners have repeatedly emphasized the need for user-friendly, quality-assured, comparable and consistent LCI databases (see Smet and Stalmans, 1996;Sonnemann and Inaba, 2002;Frischknecht et al., 2005). In response, an increasing number of national and regional LCA (or LCI) databases are being developed (Frischknecht, 2006). Examples include a database for energy production in Korea (Lee et al., 2004) and the Swiss ecoinvent database (see Frischknecht et al., 2005).The large number of data needed has been identifi ed as one of the main obstacles to the use of LCA by small and medium-sized companies (see, e.g., Mueller et al., 2004;Zamagni et al., 2005). One way to address this problem is to develop ways of reducing the number of data needed. A number of simplifi ed LCA methods have thus been developed (Mori et al., 2000;Fleischer et al., 2001;Hochschorner and Finnveden, 2003), and some tools have been developed specifi cally for small and medium-sized companies (see e.g. Cappellaro et al., 2005;Goldoni and Bonoli, 2005).However, despite more than a decade of intense efforts to refi ne the methodology, set standards, develop tools and provide recommendations to facilitate the conduct of an LCA, th...

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Prior Research on LCA PracticePrior research on LCA provides few clear answers on what shapes LCA practice in industry. LCA methodology has been the focus of most of the research done to date. Research on the application of the tool in industry is limited and provides divergent results. AbstractGoal, Scope and Background. The mere existence of life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology and general acceptance of the life cycle philosophy is not enough to make their use widespread in industry. To gain a better understanding of factors shaping LCA studies and life cycle related practice, field studies of the development of LCA practice in two companies were carried out. Methods.In order to obtain a deeper understanding of LCA practice, the number of 'variables' was minimized and two similar companies were chosen for study: Stora Enso and SCA. Both companies are part of the Swedish forest products industry, are large multinational enterprises and have been working with LCA since the early 1990s. Both interviews and document studies were used to collect data regarding LCA work from its introduction until 2003.Results and Discussion. We found fundamental differences in LCA practice between two similar companies in regard to LCA studies per se (the number of studies undertaken and methodological preferences) and also in regard to the organisation of and approach to LCA work. By testing various theoretical explanations of these divergent LCA practices, we identified the actions of individuals and their understanding of the situation as important factors shaping LCA practice. Conclusions.Although sector-wide recommendations on LCA practice are common in the LCA community, this study indicates that companies use LCA differently despite similar structural conditions such as company size or sector affiliation. Recommendations and Perspectives.Since the understanding and actions of individuals are important in shaping LCA practice, people working with LCA in industry probably have greater scope for action than they recognise and than sector recommendations may imply when it comes to organising and carrying out their work. Thus, those working with life cycle issues, even in different sectors, can learn much from each other about ways of organising and benefiting from LCA work.