Question

"Green – not always ecological”. Do you agree to this statement?

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Answer 1

Over one or more stages of their life cycles, which are growth, use, and end-of - life, products may impact the environment. Therefore, a natural step is to tally and compare the environmental impacts of similar products throughout their life cycles.

Simply look for a product attribute that can be called green and call a product green if high in this attribute scores it. In this way, bio-based materials (such as clothing made from natural fibers), products with recycled content, and hybrid cars are labeled as green products even without genuine analysis. LCA is clearly an improvement over such simplistic thinking, with its life-cycle perspective and multiple environmental indicators. Unfortunately even incorporating life-cycle analysis can not save the green product's inherently flawed idea.

The problem with green products begins with the obviously common sense notion that greenness can be calculated by comparison with a benchmark product. LCAs will allow you to believe that a hybrid SUV is indeed greener than an equal-sized traditional SUV. But instead of a traditional compact car with higher fuel economy, the consumer might actually select the hybrid SUV. The benchmark concept for the intermediate products can be just as troublesome. An example will be a utility that prefers electricity from natural gas over renewable energy, rather than energy generated on coal as is usually believed. Suddenly the hybrid natural gas SUV and electricity are no longer green.