"The book succeeds in achieving all the stated goals, and I recommend it to a vast audience of scientists and professionals. Indeed, it is very valuable for the scientific community. It provides the state-of-the-art reference supported by a comprehensive bibliography and adopts a rigorous scientific approach. Moreover, it is also of strong interest for practitioners and professionals, in both private and public organizations, with many examples of practical applications." (Paolo Masoni, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Vol. 21, 2016)
Manuele Margni is associate professor at the Mathematical and Industrial Engineering department at Polytechnique Montréal. He is co-chair holder of the International Life Cycle Chair, a research unit of CIRAIG. His research activities aim to develop life cycle based tools to support sustainable production and consumption with a focus on the assessment of life cycle impacts, risks and benefits related to existing and new product systems. He co-developed USETox (www.usetox.org), a model based on scientific consensus for characterizing human and ecotoxicological impacts of chemical emissions, the life cycle impact assessment methodology IMPACT 2002+ and its update IMPACT World+. He’s teaching environmental modeling of toxic emissions, life cycle assessment and sustainable manufacturing classes. Parallel to his research activities Manuele gained a considerable experience working together with industry co-founding two companies: Ecointesys and Quanis, this latter being a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Inst
itute of Technology, where he still retain a key advisory role.
This book provides insight into the Life Cycle Management (LCM) concept and the progress in its implementation. LCM is a management concept applied in industrial and service sectors to improve products and services, while enhancing the overall sustainability performance of business and its value chains. In this regard, LCM is an opportunity to differentiate through sustainability performance on the market place, working with all departments of a company such as research and development, procurement and marketing, and to enhance the collaboration with stakeholders along a company’s value chain. LCM is used beyond short-term business success and aims at long-term achievements by minimizing environmental and socio-economic burden, while maximizing economic and social value.
