The SUSTAINABLE word is now so heavy with meaning that it seems scary to say out loud. So let’s just talk about it as that spot where preserving our planet and making a profit meet.

I don’t think we have a single wrapping customer who does not want to achieve both of those goals but they sometimes feel stymied by the conflicting priorities and the how –
• how to reduce costs,
• how to look at greener processes,
• how to evaluate what their vendors are doing,
• how to keep their customers happy,
• how to get the consumer onboard,
• how to control any of these variables.

It makes herding cats look easy.

After a business has looked at gaining efficiency through Lean techniques and implemented Kaizens, the opportunities are still often ones that involve people and institutions outside the facility gates. Just as looking at the timing of vendors deliveries played into a lean project, looking at what and how those vendors provide to you can play into a life cycle analysis.

Wikipedia defines Life Cycle Analysis or Assessment as “the investigation and valuation of the environmental impacts of a given product or service caused or necessitated by its existence.” It goes on to write, “The goal of LCA is to compare the full range of environmental and social damages assignable to products and services, to be able to choose the least burdensome one.

Most Life cycle analyses are done using cradle to grave. That means looking at a product from the raw material to the post-consumer disposal of all the parts. There are many directories that help with calculations for transportation, energy use, and common metrics but some of the information comes from within your own processes. It is possible to do a life cycle analysis gate to gate that looks only at what happens inside your facility, but logically that is only a baby step toward the bigger goal.

Total Cost Assessment is a newer concept now getting a lot of play. According to Lise Laurin of EarthShift, “Total Cost Assessment is the consideration of all environmental and health (E&H) costs associated with a decision, including direct costs, risks and liabilities, and costs borne by others.” It looks not simply at the cost to produce and deliver a product but the costs born by the business, employees, vendors and by society and tries to quantify all the costs. This notion behind this is that some costs are born by society and some by employees that might at some point be born by the business. Think of the number of environmental clean ups that many companies did not expect to pay for when they made the mess, or the clean water costs of making paper or beer, or the healthcare costs for cigarette users or asbestiosis.

You may think LCA and TCA are the same thing but Total Cost Assessment is not designed to have you change anything simply to recognize all the costs associated with a good regardless of who pays it.

After doing a TCA, the alternative costs of changes that are suggested by an LCA might not look too high.

You might think of the as complements, just as a screwdriver and a wrench are often used together.