Dovetailing with the “cradle to cradle” concept, in a statement today GE has announced the establishment of an Ecoassessment Center of Excellence to research a product’s environmental footprint throughout its life cycle. According to the press release:

Life cycle assessment evaluates products for their environmental impact from the raw materials used in early stage research to the end of a product’s useful life, and every step in between. GE has engaged a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team of scientists and engineers to systematically develop better, more energy efficient ways to design and manage products.

Bill Flanagan, who has been tapped to lead GE’s Ecoassessment Center of Excellence, remarks that “Environmental impact is more than just the end-product. It’s about measuring a product’s environmental footprint throughout its entire life cycle. Our team at GE Global Research is committed to applying and developing the measurement tools and processes needed to fully assess a product’s environmental impact. In turn, we hope to minimize this impact in a way that helps the environment and leads to cost savings for GE and our customers.”
Some of the projects currently underway include:

• A pilot project with GE Healthcare’s global design organization to explore the use of life cycle assessment and eco-design tools for a sophisticated piece of medical equipment;
• A peak behind the lifecycle assessment process, which discusses the importance and value of mathematics and computation in performing a product assessment, and
• An assessment of the environmental impact of bio-fuels. The entry discusses a few different projects that have provided researchers with key insights.

- Justin Manger