Seminar: “LCA related I.T.” Organization: Spanish and Catalan Networks of LCA. Norman Swindells and Pere Fullana Bellaterra, 18 June 2008 DEPUIS project

Integrated Product Policy (IPP)  European Commission policy to support the Revised Lisbon Agenda  Outlines a strategy for reducing the environmental impact caused by products  Consideration should be given to all aspects of the product life-cycle: from cradle to grave  IPP generates considerable intellectual challenges for designers who need more access to reliable engineering data from many different sources 2

Whole product life cycle 3

Sustainable data for IPP  Two main requirements for life-time information: for design, life-cycle assessment and disposal methods - data from many different sources and systems to accompany a product to manage its end- of-life phase – sustainable data  Product lifetime is longer than software lifetime 4

Problem with computerised information  Programs use different data structures (syntax) and identifiers (semantics) to describe the same information everyone makes their own screw threads and nuts and bolts  Need data description (representation) that is independent from proprietary software  Need a specification for information as a product just as with any other product 5

Systems versus standards 6

Product data technology  An achievement of ISO TC184/SC4  Standard information models to describe any product or process for the use, exchange and storage of technical data without ambiguity between different computer systems  25 years of R&D and efforts of 100’s of engineers from all of the world’s manufacturing nations 7

DEPUIS project  Promote the use of SC4 standards for eco- design  Support the use of life-cycle thinking Multi-media handbook for LCA and product data technology E-learning courses for LCA and SC4 standards  Workshops between standards developers and potential users 8

Conclude 9 Further information: