Life cycle assessment based on SysML requirement diagrams for ecodesign purposes

Food packaging still poses significant challenges from an environmental perspective. In tackling these challenges, the stage of product development has large leverage on a product’s impact over its life cycle. Yet despite the importance of addressing a product’s impact at early development stages, integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) into methods of early product development is still an open task. Therefore, in the presented article, information from early product development is used to derive LCA scenarios for a yoghurt cup packaging system. The overall goal is to provide product developers with guidance on further design decisions. In the presented methodology, systems modelling language requirement diagrams in accordance with model-based systems engineering methods are used to derive LCA scenarios from technical requirements of a packaging system. LCA case studies are conducted for a base packaging system and assumed changes to the packaging system. The results of the LCA study show that especially the minimum wall thickness of the cup and lid of the packaging have the highest sensitivity towards changes and thus present opportunities to reduce the packaging’s impact in the ongoing design process. The concept of using requirements as a base for LCA scenarios proved to be purposeful while more testing of the process, especially with more complex product systems, must be conducted.