QMS & EMS London

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, retrofitting buildings has the largest potential of all measures to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions by 2030. In the UK, successful retrofitting of the built environment is key to meeting its target of reducing GHGs to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. Emissions from buildings contributed 35% of the UK’s total in 2011, says the committee on climate change (CCC). Its latest progress report on meeting the UK’s carbon budgets reveals that 66% of emissions from buildings are from residential ones, while commercial and public sector emissions account for 25% and 9% respectively.

The lightning war between Samsung and Apple is already here. Samsung's newest, feature-packed Galaxy S4 may put pressure on Apple Inc to accelerate its pace of smartphone design and venture into cheaper devices - both departures from usual practice. The latest Galaxy, unwrapped with much fanfare in New York on Thursday, defeats the iPhone in most technical aspects. But the challenges it encapsulates run deeper than just a simple specifications comparison.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an internationally standardised methodology (ISO 14040). LCA helps to quantify the environmental pressures related to goods and services (products), the environmental benefits, the trade-offs and areas for achieving improvements taking into account the full life-cycle of the product.

Every life cycle of a product or service starts with the extraction and processing of raw materials, followed by manufacturing, transportation and use, and ends with waste management including recycling and final disposal. Each of these life cycle stages consumes non-renewable energy and resources and generates emissions, which result in a number of environmental and health impacts at different levels. 

The product life cycle is defined as the period that starts with the initial product design (research and development) and ends with the withdrawal of the product from the marketplace. It is characterized by specific stages, including research, development, introduction, maturity, decline, and finally obsolescence as the product is removed from the market (discontinued). Each stage is often linked with changes in the flows of raw materials, parts and distribution to markets as production (input costs) is adjusted to face increasing competition.