۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Organizational competitiveness

۳٫ Life cycle sustainability assessment

۴٫ Assessment approach for the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

Discussion and conclusions

References

Sustainability is a concept adopted and approached in public and private organizations as a guiding principle that contributes to organizational development. However, the greatest challenge for organizations is its real implementation and the steps to be taken in this respect. At the same time, another challenge is how this sustainable development performance can be measured (for products and processes). These concepts are addressed in a competitive business environment, where differentiation and attraction of customers are among the main directions of action. In this context, the present paper presents Life cycle sustainability assessment of products in the context of competitiveness. At the end of the paper, an approach for the interpretation of the results obtained from the Life cycle sustainability assessment is presented.

Introduction

The concept of sustainability is strongly debated and researched in the literature. As a direction of development, sustainability is being addressed by more and more national and international companies (Ivascu et al., 2014). Sustainability was adopted by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 as the main political goal for future development in the world. In this context, sustainability and sustainable development should be the ultimate goal of developing and designing products. All products, including products and services, should be sustainable and should meet the requirements of sustainable development. Defining the concept of sustainability in the Brudland report introduces the concept of sustainability as including three components: the environment, the economy and the social dimension. These sustainability responsibilities or “pillars” need to be properly assessed and balanced if a new product is to be designed or an existing one is to be improved. If these conditions are met then the products launched on the market can be considered as sustainable. In this respect, for the development of sustainable products, the main responsibility of the research works is to present useful tools. Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) of products refers to assessing the impact of environmental, economic and social responsibilities on each developed product. This impact may be positive or negative. This evaluation is considered in the decision making process and refers to the whole process of product development and design. LCSA is a decision making tool.