Implementing Life Cycle Assessment and eco-design practices

As the impacts of climate change accelerate, sustainability has become a key focus for companies across all industries — and Hexagon is no exception. In fact, decarbonising products and implementing eco-design practises are two of our company’s most critical priorities. We believe that by leveraging Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies already at the early development phases of our projects, we’ll be better able to quantify the environmental impacts of our products and use those insights to drive sustainability improvements. In this article, we’ll discuss the role that LCA plays in Hexagon’s sustainability efforts. We’ll also highlight the four phases of LCA, explore its impact, learn more about how Hexagon translates LCA insights into design, and discover Hexagon’s vision for an LCA-empowered future.

Why LCA is critical for Hexagon’s sustainability progress

Hexagon, a frontrunner in digital reality solutions, understands that sustainability is essential not only for our continued success but also for tackling the critical environmental issues threatening our planet. To effectively manage and improve our sustainability performance, we need a robust, science-based tool that can provide comprehensive and reliable insights into the environmental impacts of our products. And that’s where LCA comes in.

LCA allows us to efficiently and effectively improve the environmental performance of our products in several key areas:

• New product development:

  LCA clearly explains how different materials, processes, and geometries affect a product’s overall environmental performance, allowing us to make informed decisions during the design phase

• Regulatory compliance:

  The growing strictness of environmental regulations requires companies to disclose their products’ environmental impact. LCA equips Hexagon to meet these requirements

• Supply chain management:

  LCA empowers our supply chain managers to consider sustainability criteria when selecting suppliers and logistics partners

• Marketing and sales:

  By considering an LCA approach when quantifying the avoided emissions that our solutions bring during their use phase, we can showcase our competitive edge in sustainability performance to customers

• Strategic sustainability management:

  LCA insights support management in prioritising company-wide sustainability initiatives that are most cost-effective, such as in which components should be given higher priority.

By leveraging LCA throughout the product lifecycle (from material sourcing to disposal), we can gain a comprehensive understanding of our environmental impact. This holistic view enables us to pinpoint areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions that demonstrably advance our sustainability goals.

The four phases of LCA

To conduct a comprehensive, scientifically rigorous LCA, we follow the standardised methodology outlined in the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards. This systematic approach consists of four key phases that guide the assessment process from start to finish:

• Goal and scope:

  First, we specify the LCA study’s boundaries and objectives. We define the product or process to be assessed, state the purpose of the study, identify the intended audience, and select the metrics for quantifying the environmental impacts. During this phase, we also make key decisions regarding the system boundaries, functional units, data requirements, assumptions, and study limitations.

• Inventory analysis:

  Next, we compile a detailed inventory of all materials and energy consumed, as well as waste, emissions, and byproducts generated at each stage of the product’s lifecycle, from raw material extraction through manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life. In phase two, we also collect and quantify the resource inputs and environmental outputs, creating a comprehensive dataset that forms the impact assessment’s foundation.

• Impact assessment:

  In phase three, we classify the inventory analysis inputs and outputs into specific environmental impact categories — like climate change, water scarcity, or cumulative energy demand. Then, we apply standard impact assessment methods to convert the inventory data into comparable units within each impact category. Essentially, we translate the inventory data into meaningful environmental metrics that allow us to quantify and interpret the potential environmental impacts.

• Interpretation:

  Finally, we analyse the impact assessment results, determining the most significant environmental hotspots across the product lifecycle. During phase four, we also assess the results’ completeness, sensitivity, and consistency while acknowledging the study’s inherent limitations and assumptions. Once our analysis is complete, we interpret the findings in the context of our original goals and scope, drawing meaningful conclusions. Lastly, we translate LCA insights into actionable recommendations for improving environmental performance.

This structured four-phase approach delivers consistent, transparent, and reliable LCAs, empowering informed decision-making and driving environmental performance improvement.

Focusing on key impact areas

While LCA provides a comprehensive framework for assessing a wide range of environmental impacts, at Hexagon, we focus on three key impact categories that align with our sustainability priorities and the most pressing global environmental challenges: climate change, water use, and cumulative energy demand.

1. Climate change, measured in kilogrammes of CO2 equivalents, is currently the most widely discussed impact category. Regulators are pushing organisations to disclose their CO2 equivalent climate impacts, with some jurisdictions implementing mandatory reporting requirements. Given this regulatory pressure and the urgency of the climate crisis, we prioritise the climate change impact category.
2. Water use, measured in cubic metres of water scarcity, tracks the water consumption throughout the lifecycle of our products. This impact category provides insights into how our products and processes affect water availability.
3. Cumulative energy demand quantifies the total energy, in joules or megajoules, required to produce a product. This impact category lets us assess our products’ energy intensity and identify opportunities for efficiency improvements. 

 

Translating LCA insights into eco-design decisions

One key way we use LCA at Hexagon is to help inform our component selection in product design. For example, when our engineers can use virgin raw materials or recycled alternatives that provide the same functionality, LCA allows us to quantify the environmental benefits of each choice.

LCA allows us to move beyond hunches or best guesses by tangibly quantifying our environmental savings with actual numbers. This data lets our engineers and managers make informed choices — like when it’s worth compromising on cost to be more environmentally beneficial — based on the LCA results.

In essence, LCA empowers Hexagon to consider different alternatives. Challenges often arise when a product’s sustainability conflicts with other criteria like cost or quality. However, LCA allows us to quantify these trade-offs—for instance, showing us that reusing major components at the end of their lifetime use may raise costs slightly but deliver a significant reduction in environmental impact. 

Future vision: Scaling LCA across the value chain

We’re still early in our LCA journey at Hexagon, but we have a clear vision for the future. 

In the short term, our focus is on driving internal adoption. Our first milestone is to reach a point where the LCA process is well established, and employees widely recognise it as the go-to solution for understanding if our actions are beneficial or detrimental in terms of environmental impact.

In the long term, we plan to extend LCA insights across our entire value chain, including suppliers, with our ultimate goal being to cover the entire product lifecycle. We’re starting with what we know and making assumptions about the unknowns but gradually working to replace assumptions with actual supplier data.

We envision a future where our suppliers and us can one day provide environmental impact data the same way cost information is provided today. Eventually, anyone should be able to request the environmental ‘price’ of a component, just like we ask for the price in dollars. 

A powerful tool

As we continue to scale LCA across our value chain and embed it into our decision-making processes, we believe it will become an increasingly powerful tool for driving sustainability improvements and reducing our environmental footprint. 

By engaging with our suppliers and working toward a future where environmental impact data is as readily available as cost information, we can create a more transparent and accountable supply chain. 

Ultimately, Hexagon’s goal is to establish LCA as an integral part of our business strategy, empowering us to make informed choices that benefit both our company and the planet. While we recognise that this journey will take time and effort, we are committed to leading the way — and setting an example for others in our industry to follow.