Individual adaptation of industry LCA practice: Results from two case studies in the Swedish forest products industry

Abstract

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.

Life Cycle Work: A Process Study of the Emergence and Performance of Life Cycle Practice

“…A social science perspective on LCM has, for example, been proposed as a way of explaining “how,” in addition to “what” LCM is and is performed (Hoffman, 2003). Such studies have shown that identical recommendations for implementation of LCA and LCM becomes inapplicable, as organizations differ and translate these guidelines differently (see, e.g., Baumann, 2000; Heiskanen, 2000; Rex & Baumann, 2007).…”

LCM development: focusing on the LC promoters and their organizational problem-solving

“…The studied practitioners worked in various environmentally related positions, such as environmental or sustainability managers, LCA specialists, and LCM project managers. This material was initially collected as part of separate studies of MNCs and their use of the LC approach (Baumann 2000;Rex and Baumann 2004;Rex and Baumann 2006;Rex 2007;Nilsson-Lindén et al 2018;Rex et al 2015). This present paper thus presents a secondary analysis building on a re-use of pre-existing qualitative data derived from previous research studies in order to investigate additional research questions (see Heaton 2008).…”

“…Studies of LC adoption and integration of LCM in company practices have been relatively few and more studies have been called for (Seuring 2004;Vermeulen and Seuring 2009). Existing studies show that LCM development requires more efforts than adoption: LCM has to be adapted and tailored to the specific organizational context (Mortimer 2011;van der Heijden et al 2012; Sonneman and Margni 2015); Baumann (2000) observed that LC practitioners engaged in LC promotional activities and concluded that identical LC implementation 'recipes' will not fit all organizations (Baumann 2000); individuals' interpretations and contextual factors influence the use of LCA in organizations (Heiskanen 2000;Rex and Baumann 2007). In sum, the significance of practitioners for LCM development is identified in these papers, but their role is not examined in detail.…”

Environmental Impact Assessment of Forest Operations and Pulp Manufacture

“…So far, LCA has already been applied to evaluate the environmental impact of different wood products (Rex and Baumann 2007). Recent publications on LCA have studied wood products such as paper and pulp (Dias et al 2007a;González-García et al 2009a), boards (Rivela et al 2006a(Rivela et al , 2007González-García et al 2009b, 2011a, floor coverings (Petersen and Solberg 2004;Nebel et al 2006), window frames (Richter and Gugerli 1996;Asif et al 2002;Tarantini et al 2011), walls (Werner 2001), furniture (Taylor and van Langenberg 2003), containers (González-García et al 2011b), chairs (Fet et al 2009), writing paper (Lopes et al 2003) and packaging materials (Farreny et al 2008) as well as the use of wood wastes in ephemeral architecture (Rivela et al 2006b).…”