Ecodesign coupled with Life Cycle Assessment to reduce the environmental impacts of an industrial enzymatic cleaner

The application of life cycle assessment (LCA) through ecodesign strategies enables making informed choices on the sustainability of products and services. Accordingly, in this work we quantify the environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of an enzymatic multipurpose cleaner to provide guidance on how producers and consumers can boost the implementation of more sustainable production and consumption patterns. LCA methodology with primary data is applied. To enable future comparison, 1 kg of detergent in its container is used as a functional unit, and cradle-to-grave system boundaries are set according to the reference detergents and cleaning products Product Category Rules (PCR). The environmental impacts are grouped into upstream, core and downstream life cycle phases, and seven impact categories are analyzed. Regarding the upstream stage, the degreaser 3-butoxy-2-propanol has the larger environmental load in 4 of 7 categories analyzed. During the core stage, electricity, natural gas and road transport of raw materials are the main contributors, while road transport has the largest share in 6 of the 7 downstream impact categories. Considering a cradle-to-grave boundary, a CO2-eq footprint of 0.76 kg per kg of packaged detergent is obtained, where energy consumption and transportation are the main impact drivers. Five ecodesigned scenarios are proposed to lower the overall environmental footprint of the enzymatic cleaner, including the use of renewable energy, higher volume packaging, the use of recycled packaging, the use of renewable surfactants from vegetal origin instead of petrochemically derived ones and the change from road transport for distribution to railway transport are analyzed. Among the proposed new scenarios aimed lower the cradle-to-grave environmental impacts, enlarging packaging volume results the most effective choice, lowering the impacts by 8-38% (global warming reduction by 25%). On the contrary, the substitution of the petroleum-based surfactant by one based on palm kernel oil increases the impacts by 4-16%. Overall, using larger packaging and the adoption of railway transportation are the most effective measures to reduce the impacts. As the followed PCR does not take into account the impacts generated after the use phase, we encourage its extension to the complete life cycle so toxicity and biodegradability aspects can also be considered. Covering from the extraction of raw materials, to production, transport, use and end-of-life, this work may pave the path toward the adoption of responsible production and consumption patterns in the cleaning sector. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Automated summary

The study focused on the environmental impacts of enzymatic multipurpose cleaner throughout its life cycle, proposing five ecodesigned scenarios to reduce the overall environmental footprint. Among these scenarios, increasing packaging volume was found to be the most effective choice.