Life Cycle Management - Task Force 1: Life Cycle Management Handbook and Training Material

Aims

In absence of an agreed upon definition for LCM, the handbook will introduce the LCM framework, discuss drivers and needs, describe the major underlying approaches and provides selected illustrative examples and successes while introducing and using LCM in practise.

Motivation

LCM is a rather new concept, but product oriented policies and corporate strategies have already successfully been used to meet emerging challenges and explore opportunities towards more sustainable patterns of production and consumption. LCM offers a promising platform for linking existing strategies, concepts, programmes and tools to meet broader stakeholder, market and societal needs. The handbook will describe the links within the different tools and discuss how they can become mutually reinforcing. The handbook will also discuss success factors and provide insights in paths forward to implement life cycle thinking within organizations, both private and public.

Work program and work process

The task force will become effective in the fourth quarter of 2003, and will conclude with the presentation of the final draft handbook, ready for publication. By December 2003, a draft outline of the handbook will be presented to the program and initiative leadership. Herein included are contributions for other task forces, that supply state-of-the art descriptions of their respective fields. The draft handbook will be completed by June 2004 in the form of an introductory booklet. Then for 2005 a more comprehensive handbook can be published.