Abstract
As a part of the new ISO 14000 environmental management standard, standards for conducting Life-Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are proposed. In this paper we compare these standards to Activity-Based LCA by using a toy manufacturer called WagonHo!, Inc. as an implementation test case. In this case study, both economical and environmental assessments are made of the product- and process designs. Because the ISO 14000 LCA does not incorporate costing methods, we have used Variable Costing combined with standard times. Activity-Based LCA, on the other hand, combines an Activity-Based Costing (ABC) like method and activity-based environmental impact assessment methods into a single method. The ISO 14000 and Activity-Based LCA are compared with respect to assessment accuracy and how well they indicate areas in need of redesign. Due to the need of short-term survival caused by a severe negative economic result, we will mainly look at process design and market strategies, because product design is a more long-term effort. It is shown that in this case, Activity-Based LCA is superior to ISO 14000 based LCA — possibly in most situations.
