In the past, the industry has been producing their products in such a way to maximize profits while considering environmental aspects as constraints that must be satisfied. Nowadays, this type of problem formulation needs reconsideration; sometimes, environmental aspects are not merely constraints. For example, some processes are introduced, aiming at increasing the renewability of the resources consumed or at lowering carbon emission to mitigate climate change. In designing an innovative system to lead the societies towards a sustainable vision, consideration of environmental aspects, as well as economic and social aspects, are necessary. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used to serve in such a context, introducing a system-wide environmental perspective in technology and technical systems assessment.
 
LCA has been developed as an environmental systems analysis tool specialized in product system management. It aims to understand the system-wide environmental intervention of human activities. Conventional LCA (hereafter referred to as LCA 1.0) is characterized by its product-centered view on economic activities. The scope of the study encompasses the “cradle-to-grave (mining, transportation, manufacturing, retail, use, recycle, end of life treatment, ...)” of a target product. In LCA 1.0, it is essential to clarify what the “functional unit” is. The functional unit can be a tangible product (ex. a personal vehicle), or a service (ex. 1 km transportation of 1 person by a personal vehicle). There have been numerous studies conducted using LCA 1.0 because it takes into account both direct and indirect environmental burdens induced by the functional unit.
 
While providing a simple view of complex industrial systems, there are also some drawbacks to the use of a product-centered view on a system. One of the important ones among several is that it tends to over-emphasize the efficiency aspect when it is applied to the evaluation of the technologies used in the product life cycle. For example, there has been a “3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) policy” for recycling in Japan. Under LCA 1.0 approach, various recycling routes are ranked by its efficiency in reducing environmental burdens, in many case greenhouse gases emission in Japan. The metric used here is, for example, kg-CO2eq. / kg-product. However, in Japan, we have learned in the past 2 decades that this approach overemphasizes the efficiency of recycling, and the stakeholders tend to interpret the results in such a way to overlook the importance of comprehensiveness in the recycling system.
 
Here, I claim that for systems design purpose, it is necessary that the LCA must depart from its product-centered approach (creating solutions that delivers the equivalent functional unit), and evolve into a systems-oriented approach (creating solutions that satisfies the equivalent set of constraints), while maintaining its comprehensive perspective on the associated environmental impacts. As a new approach, I propose an enhanced framework of LCA tailored for systems design (LCA 2.0). A system can produce and utilize the different amount of products (i.e., the system alternatives do not have to be consistent on the functional units), while satisfying design requirements on the system, such as economic productivity, environmental burdens, available resources, etc. During design activity, these constraints will be reviewed by multiple stakeholders for its comprehensiveness, sensitivity, and balances among various indicators. I will introduce how conventional LCA has been dealing with such assessment needs and share the new strategy taken by the proposed method.
 
The development of chemical and environmental technologies is one of the essential keys to realize a sustainability shift in society. To effectively optimize the technologies for a system that would utilize the technology, introducing a systems perspective is necessary. In this lecture, I would also try to communicate the audience the joy and excitement of chemical/environmental systems study, as well as the benefit of technology development researchers to work in partnership with such a group.