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Life Cycle Initiative announcements, events and more!

July/August 2017 Edition

• LC Net Focus

• Announcements

• Networks

• Our calendar of upcoming events

• Jobs

Contact us:

[email protected]
www.lifecycleinitiative.org

LC Net Focus

Call for Membership: 
The Life Cycle Initiative enters a new chapter

The Life Cycle Initiative is moving into a new phase of programmes promoting life cycle knowledge and thinking. At this exciting time, the Initiative has designed a new governance structure and we now launch a call for members ahead of the virtual General Assembly on 21 September 2017. Here, a new Steering Committee will be elected, heading a more transparent, more open and leaner governance structure.

The Life Cycle Initiative will deliver programmes across three main areas: technical and policy advice, capacity development, and knowledge. By 2022, the Initiative will, crucially, mainstream the use of Life Cycle Thinking into at least four global areas of policy making and decision making for sustainable development, through partnerships in at least 15 countries and 30 companies. The Initiative will also train at least 2,500 policy makers, business decision makers and Life Cycle Assessment practitioners, in addition to offering a solution to access Life Cycle Assessment databases and impact assessment characterisation factors in an interoperable way.

This new, more ambitious phase in the Initiative’s development follows an extensive review of the Initiative’s strategy, and a subsequent streamlining process. It reflects the growing need for an engaged and active membership base, including institutional members from three broad constituencies (government, business, science and civil society), and individual members from science and civil society.

The Secretariat of the Life Cycle Initiative invites you and/or your institution to join us as we move into an exciting and highly active period, delivering strong results for all stakeholders in the years to come. You can download the membership application form and return it signed (with your organization's logo, if applicable) to [email protected].

Application for membership is open throughout the year; members’ census for voting in the 2017 Assembly will be closed on 6 September 2017.

Welcome to the Life Cycle Initiative!

Announcements

Including abstract deadlines, publications, and other interesting news

Call for Applications for the 2017 LCA Award

The Life Cycle Initiative has announced the 2017 LCA Award, and is currently calling for proposals. This award aims to transfer tools and knowledge to develop capacities on using LCA in target regions. Individuals and organizations based in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean are welcome to submit their project proposals. Selected projects will receive technical support from LCA experts, as well as LCA software and/or database from our sponsors.

The application submission deadline is 13 July 2017.

For further information, please visit: https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/call-for-applications-for-the-2017-lca-award/ 

Public Consultation on Key Environmental Indicators for the Private Tourism Sector

UN Environment is conducting a public consultation on the guidance document for Key Environmental Indicators for the Tourism Private Sector. The guidance document is the outcome of collaboration among sustainable tourism and major life cycle approach experts from academia, international organizations and industry associations.

The indicators identified in this guidance would help the tourism private sector to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement using a life cycle perspective.

The main objectives of this consultation are to: communicate recommendations on key environmental indicators to tourism value chain professionals, and; collect feedback and suggestions from the tourism industry in order to improve suggested indicators and implementation guidelines.

The consultation participation deadline is close of business on 31 July 2017.

In order to participate in the consultation, please go to the project website. 

Coming Soon: Road Testing Organizational Life Cycle Assessment Report

This month, the global life cycle community will see the release of the report ‘Road testing Organizational Life Cycle Assessment around the world: Applications, experiences and lessons learned’.

The report is being released following the successful launch in 2015 of ‘Guidance on Organizational Life Cycle Assessment’, a Life Cycle Initiative publication with more than 10,000 downloads to date. After this report, the Organizational LCA (O-LCA) flagship project embarked on an ambitious piloting process: O-LCA was applied by 12 organizations from around the world, the “O-LCA road testers”.

The new publication offers in-depth insights into O-LCA application, developed from the outcomes of the road testing. It includes an executive summary for each of the road testers’ case studies, and it presents the results of a comprehensive survey through which the road testers share their experience, feedback and lessons learned.

The publication’s O-LCA case studies represent an important contribution to the existing body of examples and guidelines, which the authors hope will promote and inspire further application of O-LCA, greater use of the O-LCA Guidance, and on-going enhancement of the O-LCA methodology.

The report will be available on the Life Cycle Initiative website by the end of July.

‘AWARE’ Paper Available Online

The Life Cycle Initiative announces the publication of ‘The WULCA consensus characterization model for water scarcity footprints: assessing impacts of water consumption based on available water remaining’, developed by the WULCA project in the framework of its collaboration with the Life Cycle Initiative. The paper can be accessed online, and cited using the following information:

• Boulay, A.-M., Bare, J., Benini, L., Berger, M., Lathuilliere, M., Manzardo, A., Pfister, S. (2017). Consensus-based water scarcity footprint method from WULCA: the AWARE model. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. Accepted. doi:10.1007/s11367-017-1333-8

In other news, the recording of the annual Water Use in LCA (WULCA) meeting, held on Brussels in May 2017, is available online on the WULCA website.

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News from our life cycle networks

Life Cycle Thinking and Eco-innovation for Sustainable Value Chain Management

On 12 June 2017, UN Environment hosted a one-day training event on ‘Life cycle thinking and eco-innovation for sustainable value chain management’. Held in Medellín, Colombia, the event was part of the 2017 International Conference on Life Cycle Analysis in Latin America (CILCA). The training was funded by the European Commission, under the Resource Efficiency through Application of Life cycle thinking (REAL) project, and introduced participants to life cycle thinking and management and eco-innovation as strategic business solutions which embed sustainability into business practices.

Forty-five participants attended from numerous Latin American countries, exceeding expectations of the organizers. During the event, a series of practical exercises allowed participants to deepen their understanding of the key issues in life cycle thinking and eco-innovation; they applied the tools for hotspots analysis and eco-innovation to a concrete case study form the textiles sector.

Training participants will now have the opportunity to develop pilot project proposals aimed at boosting the uptake of life cycle thinking in their own institutions or partner organizations, including businesses. A forthcoming, separate call for pilot project proposals will be issued to select projects for seed funding from UN Environment.

Our Calendar: where we and our partners will be active

Life Cycle Initiative Virtual General Assembly | 21 September 2017 | Virtual, online event

On 21 September 2017, the Secretariat of Life Cycle Initiative will be hosting a virtual General Assembly, the first such meeting of the Initiative’s new phase. Prior to this important event, the Secretariat has issued a call for membership of the Initiative, open throughout the year. You or your institution can join by downloading and completing the membership application form and returning it signed (with your organization's logo, if applicable) to [email protected].

The LCM2017 CONFERENCE | 3-6 September 2017 | Luxembourg

This eighth edition of the LCM conference will focus on practical solutions for the implementation of life cycle approaches in strategic and operational decision making. This could be at the stage of methodology development, tools and methods experimentation, or LCM-driven success stories as market innovations. 

The Life Cycle Initiative Secretariat will make a presentation during the closing ceremony of the conference. Join us there!

>> Consult the conference’s website.

Indian Conference on Life Cycle Management (ILCM) 2017 | 9-10 October 2017 | New Delhi

The 2017 event will gather Indian and international LCA community experts and stakeholders including government, industry, academia and the voluntary sector to explore the applicability of life cycle thinking for realization of sustainable consumption and production patterns. The objective of ILCM 2017 is to discuss and advance the implementation of life cycle approaches along business value chains, supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability. You can download the guidelines for abstract submission and submit it by the deadline of 15 July 2017.

>> Consult the conference website.

World Resources Forum 2017 | 24-25 October 2017 | Geneva, Switzerland

This year’s WRF conference on ‘Accelerating the Resource Revolution’ will focus on conditions, challenges and opportunities for governments, businesses, academia and civil society. More specifically, participants will look at how to accelerate the resource transition and how to manage, coordinate, finance, track progress, train and communicate.

>> Consult the official event website. 

The [avniR] Conference on ‘Life Cycle Management, the pathway for eco-transition’ | 8-9 November 2017 | Lille, France

The [avniR] conference is the international event that brings together more than 300 professionals (large companies, SMEs, public actors, international academics) and experts around Life Cycle Management issues. The objective of this year’s conference is to share the latest best practices, scientific insights and innovations leading to the successful implementation of Life Cycle Management to boost competitiveness.

The Life Cycle Initiative will present the new strategy in the conference, and please also visit us at our booth!

>> Consult the conference website.

You can also consult our Events page for more information about the events above. Is there an event coming up in your area? Just let us know and we'll add it to our list.

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Jobs

Life Cycle consultant and intern positions in UN Environment

A consultant position for the Global LCA Data Access network at UN Environment is now open for applications -the deadline is 13 July 2017. In addition, an internship position to work with the Life Cycle Initiative Secretariat will open shortly at UN Environment, and will be announced on the Initiative’s website.

Please spread the word and mention these two opportunities to any potentially interested candidates!

Call for life cycle institutions and experts on plastics

UN Environment is currently managing a project on marine plastics together with partners at Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Ocean Conservancy. One of the project components is to use life cycle based methods to assess the hotspots along the plastics value chain related to the issues of marine plastics, and provide corresponding suggestions on how to address these hotspots systematically.

We are actively looking for both institutions and individual experts to collaborate with us in this area. If you have the relevant knowledge and working experience of using hotspots analysis or similar methods to map the key environmental hotspots for value chains (preferably in the plastics sector), please kindly contact us.

You may send a short introduction email, and an institutional or personal CV to: [email protected] specifying "call for expertise on plastics" in the subject.

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Secretariat of the Life Cycle Initiative

For more information, please visit our website, or feel free to contact us by email.  

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