Assessing the economic and ecological impact of plastic products

The framework of the International Standard Organization's (ISO) 14040 series provides the practitioner with rules to deal with different aspects of analysis and assessment of the life cycle of products. The standard emphasizes the importance of accurate data to perform a valid analysis. This premise lets LCA (life cycle assessment) studies become time-consuming and expensive. But, sound decision-making by management in enterprises can be done even in cases where data are incomplete or vary, when the eco-efficiency analysis methodology is used that has been developed and applied by BASF in more than 150 projects during the last five years.