Product environmental impact assessments and life cycle assessment (LCA)

Covering the entire process — from materials procurement, production and use to collection and recycling

Brother Industries, Ltd. (BIL) conducts product environmental impact assessments in order to evaluate the impact that products have on the environment across the entire product life cycle from material procurement to production, use, collection and recycling. There are 41 assessment items in all. And for the more important ones, implementation of improvements is required in the product development stage.

Important evaluation items of product environmental impact assessment

Product environmental impact assessment flow

In this product environmental impact assessment, we sequentially conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) that quantitatively identifies with numerical data the "degree of impact on the environment" of a product in each stage of its life cycle. Environmental load characteristics and improvement points are identified and the improvement effect is confirmed for each product.

Evaluation results are released as product environmental information via the BIL Web site and as the Eco Leaf environmental label managed and operated by the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry. Other LCA information is posted on BIL's intranet for sharing amongst in-house departments, which has the effect of promoting the development of environment-friendly products. As of March 2009, LCA information is publicized on an in-house basis for 27 products. The information will be updated to cover all the products on which LCAs have been conducted, thereby promoting information-sharing amongst in-house departments.