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From Goods to Services: The Life Cycle Assessment Perspective

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  • Published:
Journal of Service Science Research

Abstract

The traditional good dominant logic framework was recently replaced by a service dominant logic. This shift requires also different perspective on life cycle assessment (LCA), from the definition of the value of the process to be analyzed and thus the reference scenario, to the measures to be generated in order to accurately and reliably present the environmental, social and economic impacts. Moreover, it requires to interpret differently the input-output inventory of physical resources of materials and energies, but also to stress the importance of assessing non-physical resources like effort and knowledge. In general, moving from a good to a service or a product-service system, changes the focus from production to usage, identifying by different alternatives, which dematerialize the demand by servicizing. In addition, servicizing increases the level of the life cycle’s value, where eventually the customer could be turned into a provider and reduce the environmental impacts. In service based LCA perspective, the joint value co-creation and the customer behavior are the main drivers of the LCA impacts due to the promotion of a general functional unit that fulfill the need. Three cases of study are used as examples to apply LCA to the transition from goods to services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Green Processes Center, Sami Shamoon College of Engineering, Ashdod, Israel

    Adi Wolfson

  2. Departamento de Ingenierías Química y Biomolecular, Universidad de Cantabria, Cantabria, Spain

    Antonio Dominguez-Ramos & Angel Irabien

Authors
  1. Adi Wolfson
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  2. Antonio Dominguez-Ramos
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  3. Angel Irabien
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Correspondence to Adi Wolfson.

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Adi Wolfson is a professor of chemical engineering at Sami Shamoon College of Engineering (SCE). Prof. Wolfson earned his PhD summa cum laude in chemical engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel. His research is focused in the fields of green chemistry and engineering and on developing methodologies, models and tools for sustainable services and clean services (CleanServ).

Antonio Dominguez-Ramos is an assistant professor and researcher at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of the Universidad de Cantabria (Spain). He holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad de Cantabria. His research activities portfolio takes as reference the Sustainable Production and Consumption concept as a fundamental approach for Climate Change mitigation through the development of the innovative process in

Angel Irabien is a professor of Chemical Engineering at Cantabria University in Spain. He holds a PhD in Technical Chemistry from the Basque Country University, predoctoral studies in the Friedrich Alexander Universität (Germany), postdoctoral studies at the Kings College, University of London (UK) and he has been academic visitor at the Oxford University (UK). His research interests include areas such as sustainable processes and sustainable products involving

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Wolfson, A., Dominguez-Ramos, A. & Irabien, A. From Goods to Services: The Life Cycle Assessment Perspective. J Serv Sci Res 11, 17–45 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12927-019-0002-9

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