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Top 10 Unique and Helpful Insights (with Fitting Emojis):
Key Stories, Symbols, and Archetypes:
These symbols illustrate the importance and challenges of assessing technology's environmental impacts, making the insights practical and memorable.
Technology Impact Assessment (TIA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are distinct tools with overlapping goals but differ in scope, focus, and methodology. Here's a detailed comparison:
Technology Impact Assessment (TIA):
1. Definition:
TIA is a broad, systematic, and interdisciplinary process to evaluate the potential environmental, social, and economic impacts of technologies over time.
2. Scope:
Focuses on assessing the consequences of introducing, developing, or applying technologies, often including indirect, socio-economic, and delayed effects.
It evaluates both qualitative and quantitative impacts.
3. Approach:
Holistic and anticipatory, considering various stages of technology development (from concept to market) and social context.
Includes stakeholder engagement and participatory methods.
4. Limitations:
Often qualitative and subjective, leading to variability in interpretation.
Highly dependent on assumptions about future contexts and uncertainties.
5. Applications:
Used in policymaking, strategic technology planning, and managing innovation risks.
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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA):
1. Definition:
LCA is a quantitative method that systematically evaluates the environmental impacts of a product or service throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to disposal.
2. Scope:
Focuses specifically on environmental impacts, such as carbon footprint, water usage, and resource depletion.
It follows a structured framework: goal definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation.
3. Approach:
Data-driven and standardized (e.g., ISO 14040/44).
Requires extensive data collection for inputs (materials, energy) and outputs (emissions, waste) across the product life cycle.
4. Limitations:
Ignores broader socio-economic impacts.
Boundaries (e.g., cradle-to-gate vs. cradle-to-grave) can influence results significantly.
Often relies on averages, which may not capture specific conditions.
5. Applications:
Product design, process optimization, marketing claims (e.g., carbon-neutral products), and regulatory compliance
Key Differences:
Integration:
While TIA provides a holistic view of technology impacts, LCA offers detailed, measurable environmental insights. Combining both can provide comprehensive guidance for sustainable innovation and decision-making.
How can we measure the impact of our technologies and products on the environment? In this video, we're talking about technology assessment to better understand how we can assess the environmental impact of technology and products.
We have three main objectives:
Let's consider Unilever as an example. Unilever applied LCA techniques to understand the environmental impact of their products. Using LCA, they evaluated product innovation for brands like Dove or Ben & Jerry's, redesigning packaging and reformulating chemical compositions. This approach also led to more sustainable sourcing, such as transitioning to 100% sustainable palm oil and tea. Furthermore, Unilever looked at consumer behavior, introducing cold-water laundry detergents and encouraging energy savings during laundry. With LCA findings, Unilever reduced CO2 emissions per consumer use by 31% from 2010 to 2020. Their environmentally friendlier brands drove 75% of the company's growth. These examples show how going "green" can align with economic growth, such as using lighter, more recyclable packaging.
LCA is one technique among many used in technology impact assessments. Technology impact assessments are systematic, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive. They can be reactive (assessing existing products), projective (anticipating future technologies), or retrospective (understanding past conditions). They can be problem-centric or technology-oriented. These assessments should be holistic, considering multiple dimensions, scenarios, and options. Though complex, they aim for transparency, neutrality, stakeholder participation, and the presentation of alternatives.
Key elements of technology impact assessments include:
The assessment process often involves:
Ideal characteristics of technology impact assessments include a holistic approach, anticipation of long-term effects, consideration of indirect and delayed outcomes, adaptation to the technology at hand, and an iterative evaluation process.
For company-related technology assessments, we consider factors like resource relevance, relative technology position, R&D potential, and innovation efforts. On top of economic aspects, we must evaluate social and ecological consequences, ethical considerations, and potential safety and health impacts. Acceptance barriers—social consequences, conditions of use, and health conditions—must also be considered.
Now, focusing specifically on life cycle assessments (LCA):
LCA examines a product's entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to disposal, considering all inputs and outputs. An LCA involves:
In practice, LCA involves:
For example, comparing paper vs. plastic bags with LCA might show trade-offs: energy use, CO2 emissions, waste decomposition, and resource renewability differ significantly between the two.
However, LCA has limitations:
In summary, technology impact assessments help predict long-term environmental, social, and economic effects of new technologies, guiding sustainable decision-making. Various approaches exist, and careful selection is needed based on context and objectives. LCAs are valuable for identifying improvement areas across a product’s life cycle, but we must remain aware of their limitations. Despite data constraints and assumptions, these assessments help organizations understand and improve their environmental performance.
how can we measure the impact of ourTechnologies and products on theenvironment in this video we're talkingabout technology assessment in order tobetter understand how we can assesstechnology and product impact as said ontheenvironment to do so we want tounderstand the importance of technologyimpact assessments and its variousapproaches and we want to becomefamiliar with life cycle assessments asa method for calculating environmentalimpacts and in the last step we want todiscuss limitations of technology impactassessments and life cycle assessmentsso first of all let's take uh Unileveras an example and Unilever has uhapplied a certain technique called lifecycle assessment in theirprocesses um to yeah look at the impactthat their products had on theenvironment and this had certain out uhoutcomes using this approach right sothey used it in different areas so forproduct Innovation they were looking atproducts like Dove or B and& Jerry's andtried to uh find ways how to redesignthe packaging uh and how toreformulate uh the products the chemicalformulas underlying the products um italso led to sust more sustainablesourcing so they were transitioning to100% sustainable palm oil uh andsustainable tea um in in theirProductions they were also uh looking atconsumer behavior and uh wereintroducing cold water laundrymaterials uh and were uh yeah usingconsumer campaigns in order to reduceenergy during uh yeah laundry making bytheir um consumers and why did they doso why while using LCA life cycleassessment as a technique they found outthat these are major spots where energyor resources are used um and thereforeInnovation or um yeah these campaignswere needed in order to reduce energyenergy usage or research uh usage um bythese products and there were certainoutcomes by doing so um they werereducing uh the amount of CO2 emissionsum by 31%per consumer use of their products onaverage across the decade of 2010 to2020 um and the brands that wereassociated with these products uh thatwere designed after this LCA analysis wedriving 75% of the company growth sogoing moreeconomically uhecologically uh y friendly also goeshand in hand here in that case with uhgrowth and uh economic returns and um anadditional output was that there acrossmultiple brands of the company um theywere using yeah uh more recyclable uhpackaging that which was also light somany different outcomes of this use ofthis certain technique and LCA uh whichis yeah the abbreviation for life cycleassessment is one technique of a largeruhfamily of techniques to um yeah uhevaluate the impact that our technologyand yeah the products that we derive byapplying our technologies have on uh theenvironment and technology impactassessments are uh usually systematictechniques also quiteinterdisciplinary uh comprehensive sothat they uh include uhyeah uh yeah the the whole time of uhusage of a product and they are uh yeahthey could be conducted reactively as inthe case ofum uh uni Lev to react perhaps tocertain um products and see how they umperform they can also use be usedprojectively so that you project what acertain technology that you want todevelop could uh do to the environmentto the society but also to uh to yourcompany or they could also be uh used Rretrospectively meaning that you couldanalyze how a certain condition came upum due to a certain technology they canalso be yeah problem Centric that you doan analysis around a certain problem andwant to understand how a technology ledto the problem and uh yeah why and howthis happened it could be moretechnology oriented that you really puta technology or a um a technology thatyou want to develop during a projectinto uh yeah into uh yeah center stageof theanalysis um and these analysis should ingeneral be in general be yeah veryholistic um but should also take adifferentiated approach meaningthat they should acknowledge um yeahthat there are many dimensions that areaffected by technology but they shouldbe uh yeah at the same time uhdifferentiated meaning that they takeinto account also scenarios and uhoptions that could apply given thescenario that we are in they are ingeneral they are quitecomplex um but due to their approachthey us usually aim for transparencywhich seems to be a tension right so umuh something that is complex is usuallyhard to grasp and here you want to be astransparent as possible to uh yeah tosee or to to shed light on thecomplexity of the problem um they shouldbe rather neutral right neutral inregards to uh to the assessment orneutral to uh certain IND uh interestsof of certain individuals or companiesinvolved here but should invite forparticipation for those who might beeffective they should also showAlternatives right Alternatives in withregards to what could be done or um umyeah how the uh usage of a certaintechnology could evolve in the futurefor instance if you do a more projectivetechnologyassessment so let's have a look at thedifferent elements of technology impactassessments first of all we're startingwith a problem definition and in doingso uh we're spitting up into thetechnological or the the technologycontext and the social context so um weare kind of formulating descriptions andforecasts for both dimensions and ofcourse they are interl these twoDimensions after having understood thatwe are then like looking at theconsequences so we identifying themthere will be an analysis and of coursean assessment of the consequences oncewe understood that um policy analysis orpolicy implications might be formulatedand then in the next step um yeah theresults of our analysis will becommunicated of course this is like thennot the end of the circle but then thesecommunication of the results goes backto the technology and the social contextand then of course once again one couldstart again with a problem definition sothese are kind of the different elementsof the technology impact assessmentsso when we want to evaluate the pro oftechnology impact assessments as said weare starting with the analysis so we arespecification or we like we'respecifying the task we're specifying thetechnology and we're identifying an umyeah the affected environmental areasthis is all around analyzing the statutequo and the starting point of thetechnology impactassessment the second step is then theprognosis so the choice of forecastassumptions and of course we arechoosing like the quantifiable effectsand the non-quantifiable effects and weneed to forus both of them for thequantifi non-quantifiable effects weneed to differentiate according to theaffectedareas in a last step we're thinkingabout the assessment so of course we aredetermining the evaluation Targetcriteria and of course also the weightof the criterias in order to then at theend have a compromis and an holistic umassessment of our impactanalysis after having done these threesteps we are writing the recommendationsas a last and fourthstep so now let's uh take a look at somekey characteristics of technology impactassessments or ideal characteristics howsuch an analysis should look like so itshould be rather holistic so it shouldnot consider only a certain domain ofcriteria but it should be holistic in itthat it looks at uh yeah Sooecological um uh effects beside only theeconomic or um yeah uh direct effect forthe companies so it's also aboutindirect and delayed effects that couldoccur over time when we uh yeah developor initiate a certain technology it uhyou should somehow be uh anticipatingwhat could happen uh throughout theentire Innovation process but also theusage process of um uh the thetechnology um it's an evolation EVevolutionary process right so you shouldlook at the various stages that thetechnology could take from the yeah ideaabout the technology over itsdevelopment over the uh Market launch ofcertain Innovations or products uh basedon that um technology in general youshould avoid uh somehow applying a kindof a standardized process standardizedindicators um that you just use uh itshould be rather flexible and adapted tothe certain technology you are lookingat right so it'suh uh it's uh it's also an interplaythere that you uh yeah look at the datathat you need to describe the technologyand that you need to evaluate thetechnology and there's a back and forthin between so it's uh usually it's quitean iterative process such an um analysisof the uh technology impacts of a yeahto be invented technology so now weunderstand the characteristics of such atechnology impact assessment let's havea deeper look at the company relatedtechnology impact assessments so ofcourse when thinking about the companyrelated technology impact assessments wehave the evaluation components and thecontent investigation or the informationfacets that we need so first of allfirst of all we have the resourcerelevance so this is the range ofapplications within the technical uhcompany potential the range ofapplications within the product rangethe synergetic effects of existingTechnologies in the company and thesubstitution of potential for forexistingTechnologies uh in the second part wehave the relative technology position soit's a Time strategic competitiveposition in the development process theprotectability of know how and theaccess to knowledgebase then the relative R&D potential thecompetence or the degree of Mastery inthe technology field the breadth anddepth of know how the human resourcesand the access to technology resourcesand The Innovation effort so thecomplexity in the integration processthe foreseeable changes along the valuechain and the degree of comparabilitywith existing or planned products orprocesses so obviously this year is moreabout uh also the economic potential ofthis technology right so what does it dowith our organization how relevant isthetechnology uh for our current uhcompetitive position the resources thatwe have for our technology position withour competitors so it's more about yeaheconomic outcomes for a company but thenbesides this more economic perspectiveand this is here the overall topic hereuh in our session it's about um yeah thethe ecological uh impact analysis by uhimplementing such a technology theremight be side effects beyond what weconsider here uh yeah the economicaspects and these side effects shouldalso be evalu evaluated by somebodywho's uh doing an holistic technologyassessment and there might be potentialtechnicalconsequences um for instance that mightrestrict our technology developmentthere might be ethical or moral umreservations or things to consider uhdue to that technology uh could thattechnology for instance be used forWarfare um could it be used to mockpeople or to uh yeah to to uh disruptprivacy of people so there might be asociocritical discourse around thattechnology there could be barriers totechnicalimplementation there might be uh safetyissues there might be safety issuesaround on certain product components ormaterials used or there might be uhecological and health impacts of uh thetechnology and how we implement it rightso here it uhbecomes uh uh or we take a broaderperspective here uh going beyond what wehad on the previous slide just theeconomic perspective here we also takeinto account already social andecological reasons and the Le the lastthing here is acceptance barriers verysocial now so it's about the socialconsequences um the use conditionshealth conditions uh that are perhapsaffected by by our uh technology and theproducts applying thetechnology um but not only the uhtechnology itself might have such uhconsequences but also our Innovationeffort might have S side effects like uhyeah the integration effort that we needthere might be necessary changes in uhin the process and our product incomponents so there might be a need toum uh yeah to adapt our existingtechnical system there might be neededfollow up Investments due to that uhInnovation effort that we do in thefocus of our perspective here it's moreabout the upper uh section here but in aholistic perspective also the in ationeffort should beevaluated so in general we haveunderstood how technology impactassessments should look like now let'stake a yeah closer look at at onespecific technique and this is like thelife cycle assessment or LCA so um theLCA is that you are looking at the wholeproduct life cycle and have a look atokay how is this um product life cycleum yeah evaluated so there's on the onehand the inventory LCI so this is thenfrom um the flow from or to theenvironment so you have the input andthe output from the environment likeinput is the resources could be measuredin kilogram of Cru oil for example orkilogram of coal and the output is thenthe emissions for example like kilogramof CO2 orNO2 or a little bit more into detail isthe impact assessment soall lcia so thisis really about the environmental impactso it's about for example example Ffossil resource diation water use globalwarming acidification or others so whilethe inventory LCI is more about theinput and the output the impactassessment is more into detail aboutdifferent environmental impacts aroundthe whole uh life cycle of a product andas we can see here there's uh yeah thereare these different techniques and thequestion is what the scope of thesetechniques are we are looking only atour production process like in LCI or isit more about the whole lifespan likethe whole impact analysis so let's takea look um how such a technique couldlook like and what are uh the componentsor the the process behind anLCA and uh in uh General we should askourselves the questions how can weevaluate the environmental impact oflet's say uh a product and uh thisshould or could include uh everythingfrom raw material mining producingmaterials then the production of aprocess the Assembly of a product theusage its disposal and also included allthe different transport phases bebetween these uh yeah um life cycles orlife cycle phases so the question iswhat is our Target um How We Do we wantto examine it um how can weuh yeah collect the facts that we needhow can we assess the impact how can weinterpret everything around this so inthis first phase it's about definingwhich technology or product we arelooking at which functional entity inour company what are the boundaries sowhere do we stop uh to look so do wereally want to include raw materialmining here or not then in the secondphase We Gather the data and calculatesome some yeah amounts for instanceright so we will look at uh we we willdo the analysis of the input and outputwe will look at certain materials EnergyProducts waste emissions everything thatcomes around uh yeah our technology orour product our Target that we areinvestigating here then we are lookingat the impact so we will select theimpact categories is it emissions is itwater pollution is it uh uh oonedepletion what whatever it is climatechange or whatever it is uh we look atthese impact categories and select thosethat we want to assess and then afterdoing the uh analysis and assessing theimpact we will interpret uh yeah ouranalysis uh we will perhaps uh uh Evenbuildscenarios uh for future uh depending onyeah certain developments that couldoccur in production processes or so wewe will document what we did to betransparent and we will also provide ourmeasures um then um from the analysis asin our starting case of unil L we willlook for areas of applications as as wehave seen perhaps in our analysis thatthere are certain parts that are reallydriving energy consumption or so thatcould have uh yeah relevance for thedesign phase of our products andtherefore product development it couldalso lead to product or processimprovements it could also lead todifferent strategic planning with whomdo we want to partner which resources dowe want to integrate or substitute inour process it might also affectpolitical decision making if we uh areuh more like an NGO doing something likethis we might also use it for marketingor communication reasons or completelydifferent um uh other reasons so umdescribe this a little bit more indetail um so in the first step we needto determine the goal of our study so weneed to specify and this yeah thespecificity of our study do we want tolook at a company or a plant just aproduct do we want to compare twodifferent plants uh that produce thesame type of plant do weum focus on on certain industrialprocesses right so so we need to specifythis what we want to focus on then umit's also a matter of the accuracy ofour data it should be as high aspossible especially if we driving publicpolicy right if it's just for ourinternal decision making then perhaps areasonable estimate is generally enoughon the other hand it might be eveneasier if it's for our internaldecision- making um to generate databecause internally we might have it uhand and turn uh uh agency or might mighthave C might not have certain databecause it might be um yeah moreinternal and then the question is whatis the level of comparison right so umdo we want to compare let's say productsfrom two different plants internally ordo we want to compare two differenttypes of products like here in ourexample a bar soap whether it's a liquidsoap um and if so then we shouldnormalize our analysis somehow so thatwe compare it on fair means uh here forinstance on the equal number of handWashings for thesesoaps then there will be uh theinventory analysis so the more inputoutput analysis that we described beforeum and here also we need to uh uhanalyze this for every part of the lifecycles and the categories could be thechoices of materials the energy used umwhich kind of uh residuales we have heresolid and liquid ones and so on um thereare a lot of databases out there that wecould use to do so for C materials andprocesses um which look at industryaverages uh for producing uh certainproducts or industry or energy usage andso on what what are outcomes of this umwe could do so um we could if you do itas an organization users also as a benchMark for our internalprocesses um or um we could uh as an umas an uh NGO or doing such an analysisdo it for an industry as a whole orcomparing also um yeah um best-in-classcompanies to uh yeah uh yeah less uhproductive or less environmentallyfriendly companies all of this is Momostly done through software supportingthis supportingcalculations let's look at an examplehere um there and here we have an LCAconducted by uh Research Institute herecomparing uh a paper bag and a plasticbag and uh comparing them across certainuh Dimensions here which kind of rawmaterial we are using how much energy isused to make it how much waste isgenerated by this what are the totalemissions to air um and what are theglobal warming equivalent of thoseemissions um measured in U carbondioxide uh emissions so we see this herefor paperback the raw material is woodwhich is renewable compared to plasticback where it's oil and gas and notrenewable uh uh looking at the energythat is used to make it we see that umthe paperback takes even more energythan the plastic B it also generatesmore uh Solid Waste um however um thiswaste is decomposable compared to uh uhto the plastic B right um we also seethat the total amount of emissions toair is higher however weighing theseemissions and making them comparable bymeans of uh looking at CO2 equivalentswe see that the plastic bag is emittingmore uh yeah uh carbon or not car yeahcarbon equivalent greenhouse gases totheatmosphere so what are the uhlimitations of theLCA so um of course the weight of thegiven of the different impacts that wehave like as we already saw in ourexample of the plastic bag at the paperbed what is more important is the use ofwater resources or the CO2 emissions soyou really have to decide whether youwant to put the weight on the one or onthe other and you have to also decidethis based on the given environment andbased on the given example that you'relooking at then of course drawing theboundaries so the question is like is itcredle to gate or is it credle to gravewhat do we mean with that it's do weconsider supporting activities for thesystem or do we not an example is for uhfor instance a warehouse that stores aproduct so direct energy consumption forthe warehouse should be part of thesystem but emission associated withgarbage pickup for the facility probablyshould not be relevant but this is kindof something we really have to thinkabout and we really think about okaywhere do we draw the line for our impactanalysis then of course the social andthe economic impacts so environmentalimpacts are relatively easy to measurebut socioeconomic impacts are verydifficult to quantify so when you'rethinking for example about the socialimpact of the of a product or then ofcourse even more the socioeconomicimpact how do you want to measure thatand you really have to find find ways tomeasure that in an appropriate way inorder to make it then of course validandcomparable and then we have therenewable versus the non-renewableresources so uh we have to think aboutokay are we thinking about renewableresources or are these not renewableresources and how do we have to treatthese two types of resources differentlyand it's about remanufacturing Recyclingand reuse because considerations ofrecycling make significant impact eventhough that depends of course on therecycling rates so this can clearly alsobe a limitation of theLCA so what did we learn in this videofirst of all we talked about technologyimpact assessments that are crucial forpredicting the long-term environmentalsocial and economic effects of newtechnologies and this is then of courseguiding sustainable decision making thenin a second step we looked at differentapproaches to um technology impactassessments to provide diverseperspective and that they have to becarefully selected based on the specificcontext and objective on the assessmentin this specific context and objectiveof the assessment this was somethingthat we continuously highlighted in thisvideo because this is not only importantfor the technology impact assessment butof course also for life cycleassessments because we also talked aboutlife cycle assessment and that they area valuable tool for calculatingenvironmental impacts across a productand of course also across product lifecycle in helping us to identifyImprovement areas and in the last stepwe talked about the steps andlimitations of lcas um to ensure acritical and effective applicationdespite data constraint and assumptionsassumptions made during the process sowhat is most important is that there arethese different um analysis types andassessment types but that you have to beaware of the constraints of course andof course about the context theassessment and the objective when doingthese analysis thank you for watchinghow can we measure the impact of ourTechnologies and products on theenvironment in this video we're talkingabout technology assessment in order tobetter understand how we can assesstechnology and product impact as said ontheenvironment to do so we want tounderstand the importance of technologyimpact assessments and its variousapproaches and we want to becomefamiliar with life cycle assessments asa method for calculating environmentalimpacts and in the last step we want todiscuss limitations of technology impactassessments and life cycle assessmentsso first of all let's take uh Unileveras an example and Unilever has uhapplied a certain technique called lifecycle assessment in theirprocesses um to yeah look at the impactthat their products had on theenvironment and this had certain out uhoutcomes using this approach right sothey used it in different areas so forproduct Innovation they were looking atproducts like Dove or B and& Jerry's andtried to uh find ways how to redesignthe packaging uh and how toreformulate uh the products the chemicalformulas underlying the products um italso led to sust more sustainablesourcing so they were transitioning to100% sustainable palm oil uh andsustainable tea um in in theirProductions they were also uh looking atconsumer behavior and uh wereintroducing cold water laundrymaterials uh and were uh yeah usingconsumer campaigns in order to reduceenergy during uh yeah laundry making bytheir um consumers and why did they doso why while using LCA life cycleassessment as a technique they found outthat these are major spots where energyor resources are used um and thereforeInnovation or um yeah these campaignswere needed in order to reduce energyenergy usage or research uh usage um bythese products and there were certainoutcomes by doing so um they werereducing uh the amount of CO2 emissionsum by 31%per consumer use of their products onaverage across the decade of 2010 to2020 um and the brands that wereassociated with these products uh thatwere designed after this LCA analysis wedriving 75% of the company growth sogoing moreeconomically uhecologically uh y friendly also goeshand in hand here in that case with uhgrowth and uh economic returns and um anadditional output was that there acrossmultiple brands of the company um theywere using yeah uh more recyclable uhpackaging that which was also light somany different outcomes of this use ofthis certain technique and LCA uh whichis yeah the abbreviation for life cycleassessment is one technique of a largeruhfamily of techniques to um yeah uhevaluate the impact that our technologyand yeah the products that we derive byapplying our technologies have on uh theenvironment and technology impactassessments are uh usually systematictechniques also quiteinterdisciplinary uh comprehensive sothat they uh include uhyeah uh yeah the the whole time of uhusage of a product and they are uh yeahthey could be conducted reactively as inthe case ofum uh uni Lev to react perhaps tocertain um products and see how they umperform they can also use be usedprojectively so that you project what acertain technology that you want todevelop could uh do to the environmentto the society but also to uh to yourcompany or they could also be uh used Rretrospectively meaning that you couldanalyze how a certain condition came upum due to a certain technology they canalso be yeah problem Centric that you doan analysis around a certain problem andwant to understand how a technology ledto the problem and uh yeah why and howthis happened it could be moretechnology oriented that you really puta technology or a um a technology thatyou want to develop during a projectinto uh yeah into uh yeah center stageof theanalysis um and these analysis should ingeneral be in general be yeah veryholistic um but should also take adifferentiated approach meaningthat they should acknowledge um yeahthat there are many dimensions that areaffected by technology but they shouldbe uh yeah at the same time uhdifferentiated meaning that they takeinto account also scenarios and uhoptions that could apply given thescenario that we are in they are ingeneral they are quitecomplex um but due to their approachthey us usually aim for transparencywhich seems to be a tension right so umuh something that is complex is usuallyhard to grasp and here you want to be astransparent as possible to uh yeah tosee or to to shed light on thecomplexity of the problem um they shouldbe rather neutral right neutral inregards to uh to the assessment orneutral to uh certain IND uh interestsof of certain individuals or companiesinvolved here but should invite forparticipation for those who might beeffective they should also showAlternatives right Alternatives in withregards to what could be done or um umyeah how the uh usage of a certaintechnology could evolve in the futurefor instance if you do a more projectivetechnologyassessment so let's have a look at thedifferent elements of technology impactassessments first of all we're startingwith a problem definition and in doingso uh we're spitting up into thetechnological or the the technologycontext and the social context so um weare kind of formulating descriptions andforecasts for both dimensions and ofcourse they are interl these twoDimensions after having understood thatwe are then like looking at theconsequences so we identifying themthere will be an analysis and of coursean assessment of the consequences oncewe understood that um policy analysis orpolicy implications might be formulatedand then in the next step um yeah theresults of our analysis will becommunicated of course this is like thennot the end of the circle but then thesecommunication of the results goes backto the technology and the social contextand then of course once again one couldstart again with a problem definition sothese are kind of the different elementsof the technology impact assessmentsso when we want to evaluate the pro oftechnology impact assessments as said weare starting with the analysis so we arespecification or we like we'respecifying the task we're specifying thetechnology and we're identifying an umyeah the affected environmental areasthis is all around analyzing the statutequo and the starting point of thetechnology impactassessment the second step is then theprognosis so the choice of forecastassumptions and of course we arechoosing like the quantifiable effectsand the non-quantifiable effects and weneed to forus both of them for thequantifi non-quantifiable effects weneed to differentiate according to theaffectedareas in a last step we're thinkingabout the assessment so of course we aredetermining the evaluation Targetcriteria and of course also the weightof the criterias in order to then at theend have a compromis and an holistic umassessment of our impactanalysis after having done these threesteps we are writing the recommendationsas a last and fourthstep so now let's uh take a look at somekey characteristics of technology impactassessments or ideal characteristics howsuch an analysis should look like so itshould be rather holistic so it shouldnot consider only a certain domain ofcriteria but it should be holistic in itthat it looks at uh yeah Sooecological um uh effects beside only theeconomic or um yeah uh direct effect forthe companies so it's also aboutindirect and delayed effects that couldoccur over time when we uh yeah developor initiate a certain technology it uhyou should somehow be uh anticipatingwhat could happen uh throughout theentire Innovation process but also theusage process of um uh the thetechnology um it's an evolation EVevolutionary process right so you shouldlook at the various stages that thetechnology could take from the yeah ideaabout the technology over itsdevelopment over the uh Market launch ofcertain Innovations or products uh basedon that um technology in general youshould avoid uh somehow applying a kindof a standardized process standardizedindicators um that you just use uh itshould be rather flexible and adapted tothe certain technology you are lookingat right so it'suh uh it's uh it's also an interplaythere that you uh yeah look at the datathat you need to describe the technologyand that you need to evaluate thetechnology and there's a back and forthin between so it's uh usually it's quitean iterative process such an um analysisof the uh technology impacts of a yeahto be invented technology so now weunderstand the characteristics of such atechnology impact assessment let's havea deeper look at the company relatedtechnology impact assessments so ofcourse when thinking about the companyrelated technology impact assessments wehave the evaluation components and thecontent investigation or the informationfacets that we need so first of allfirst of all we have the resourcerelevance so this is the range ofapplications within the technical uhcompany potential the range ofapplications within the product rangethe synergetic effects of existingTechnologies in the company and thesubstitution of potential for forexistingTechnologies uh in the second part wehave the relative technology position soit's a Time strategic competitiveposition in the development process theprotectability of know how and theaccess to knowledgebase then the relative R&D potential thecompetence or the degree of Mastery inthe technology field the breadth anddepth of know how the human resourcesand the access to technology resourcesand The Innovation effort so thecomplexity in the integration processthe foreseeable changes along the valuechain and the degree of comparabilitywith existing or planned products orprocesses so obviously this year is moreabout uh also the economic potential ofthis technology right so what does it dowith our organization how relevant isthetechnology uh for our current uhcompetitive position the resources thatwe have for our technology position withour competitors so it's more about yeaheconomic outcomes for a company but thenbesides this more economic perspectiveand this is here the overall topic hereuh in our session it's about um yeah thethe ecological uh impact analysis by uhimplementing such a technology theremight be side effects beyond what weconsider here uh yeah the economicaspects and these side effects shouldalso be evalu evaluated by somebodywho's uh doing an holistic technologyassessment and there might be potentialtechnicalconsequences um for instance that mightrestrict our technology developmentthere might be ethical or moral umreservations or things to consider uhdue to that technology uh could thattechnology for instance be used forWarfare um could it be used to mockpeople or to uh yeah to to uh disruptprivacy of people so there might be asociocritical discourse around thattechnology there could be barriers totechnicalimplementation there might be uh safetyissues there might be safety issuesaround on certain product components ormaterials used or there might be uhecological and health impacts of uh thetechnology and how we implement it rightso here it uhbecomes uh uh or we take a broaderperspective here uh going beyond what wehad on the previous slide just theeconomic perspective here we also takeinto account already social andecological reasons and the Le the lastthing here is acceptance barriers verysocial now so it's about the socialconsequences um the use conditionshealth conditions uh that are perhapsaffected by by our uh technology and theproducts applying thetechnology um but not only the uhtechnology itself might have such uhconsequences but also our Innovationeffort might have S side effects like uhyeah the integration effort that we needthere might be necessary changes in uhin the process and our product incomponents so there might be a need toum uh yeah to adapt our existingtechnical system there might be neededfollow up Investments due to that uhInnovation effort that we do in thefocus of our perspective here it's moreabout the upper uh section here but in aholistic perspective also the in ationeffort should beevaluated so in general we haveunderstood how technology impactassessments should look like now let'stake a yeah closer look at at onespecific technique and this is like thelife cycle assessment or LCA so um theLCA is that you are looking at the wholeproduct life cycle and have a look atokay how is this um product life cycleum yeah evaluated so there's on the onehand the inventory LCI so this is thenfrom um the flow from or to theenvironment so you have the input andthe output from the environment likeinput is the resources could be measuredin kilogram of Cru oil for example orkilogram of coal and the output is thenthe emissions for example like kilogramof CO2 orNO2 or a little bit more into detail isthe impact assessment soall lcia so thisis really about the environmental impactso it's about for example example Ffossil resource diation water use globalwarming acidification or others so whilethe inventory LCI is more about theinput and the output the impactassessment is more into detail aboutdifferent environmental impacts aroundthe whole uh life cycle of a product andas we can see here there's uh yeah thereare these different techniques and thequestion is what the scope of thesetechniques are we are looking only atour production process like in LCI or isit more about the whole lifespan likethe whole impact analysis so let's takea look um how such a technique couldlook like and what are uh the componentsor the the process behind anLCA and uh in uh General we should askourselves the questions how can weevaluate the environmental impact oflet's say uh a product and uh thisshould or could include uh everythingfrom raw material mining producingmaterials then the production of aprocess the Assembly of a product theusage its disposal and also included allthe different transport phases bebetween these uh yeah um life cycles orlife cycle phases so the question iswhat is our Target um How We Do we wantto examine it um how can weuh yeah collect the facts that we needhow can we assess the impact how can weinterpret everything around this so inthis first phase it's about definingwhich technology or product we arelooking at which functional entity inour company what are the boundaries sowhere do we stop uh to look so do wereally want to include raw materialmining here or not then in the secondphase We Gather the data and calculatesome some yeah amounts for instanceright so we will look at uh we we willdo the analysis of the input and outputwe will look at certain materials EnergyProducts waste emissions everything thatcomes around uh yeah our technology orour product our Target that we areinvestigating here then we are lookingat the impact so we will select theimpact categories is it emissions is itwater pollution is it uh uh oonedepletion what whatever it is climatechange or whatever it is uh we look atthese impact categories and select thosethat we want to assess and then afterdoing the uh analysis and assessing theimpact we will interpret uh yeah ouranalysis uh we will perhaps uh uh Evenbuildscenarios uh for future uh depending onyeah certain developments that couldoccur in production processes or so wewe will document what we did to betransparent and we will also provide ourmeasures um then um from the analysis asin our starting case of unil L we willlook for areas of applications as as wehave seen perhaps in our analysis thatthere are certain parts that are reallydriving energy consumption or so thatcould have uh yeah relevance for thedesign phase of our products andtherefore product development it couldalso lead to product or processimprovements it could also lead todifferent strategic planning with whomdo we want to partner which resources dowe want to integrate or substitute inour process it might also affectpolitical decision making if we uh areuh more like an NGO doing something likethis we might also use it for marketingor communication reasons or completelydifferent um uh other reasons so umdescribe this a little bit more indetail um so in the first step we needto determine the goal of our study so weneed to specify and this yeah thespecificity of our study do we want tolook at a company or a plant just aproduct do we want to compare twodifferent plants uh that produce thesame type of plant do weum focus on on certain industrialprocesses right so so we need to specifythis what we want to focus on then umit's also a matter of the accuracy ofour data it should be as high aspossible especially if we driving publicpolicy right if it's just for ourinternal decision making then perhaps areasonable estimate is generally enoughon the other hand it might be eveneasier if it's for our internaldecision- making um to generate databecause internally we might have it uhand and turn uh uh agency or might mighthave C might not have certain databecause it might be um yeah moreinternal and then the question is whatis the level of comparison right so umdo we want to compare let's say productsfrom two different plants internally ordo we want to compare two differenttypes of products like here in ourexample a bar soap whether it's a liquidsoap um and if so then we shouldnormalize our analysis somehow so thatwe compare it on fair means uh here forinstance on the equal number of handWashings for thesesoaps then there will be uh theinventory analysis so the more inputoutput analysis that we described beforeum and here also we need to uh uhanalyze this for every part of the lifecycles and the categories could be thechoices of materials the energy used umwhich kind of uh residuales we have heresolid and liquid ones and so on um thereare a lot of databases out there that wecould use to do so for C materials andprocesses um which look at industryaverages uh for producing uh certainproducts or industry or energy usage andso on what what are outcomes of this umwe could do so um we could if you do itas an organization users also as a benchMark for our internalprocesses um or um we could uh as an umas an uh NGO or doing such an analysisdo it for an industry as a whole orcomparing also um yeah um best-in-classcompanies to uh yeah uh yeah less uhproductive or less environmentallyfriendly companies all of this is Momostly done through software supportingthis supportingcalculations let's look at an examplehere um there and here we have an LCAconducted by uh Research Institute herecomparing uh a paper bag and a plasticbag and uh comparing them across certainuh Dimensions here which kind of rawmaterial we are using how much energy isused to make it how much waste isgenerated by this what are the totalemissions to air um and what are theglobal warming equivalent of thoseemissions um measured in U carbondioxide uh emissions so we see this herefor paperback the raw material is woodwhich is renewable compared to plasticback where it's oil and gas and notrenewable uh uh looking at the energythat is used to make it we see that umthe paperback takes even more energythan the plastic B it also generatesmore uh Solid Waste um however um thiswaste is decomposable compared to uh uhto the plastic B right um we also seethat the total amount of emissions toair is higher however weighing theseemissions and making them comparable bymeans of uh looking at CO2 equivalentswe see that the plastic bag is emittingmore uh yeah uh carbon or not car yeahcarbon equivalent greenhouse gases totheatmosphere so what are the uhlimitations of theLCA so um of course the weight of thegiven of the different impacts that wehave like as we already saw in ourexample of the plastic bag at the paperbed what is more important is the use ofwater resources or the CO2 emissions soyou really have to decide whether youwant to put the weight on the one or onthe other and you have to also decidethis based on the given environment andbased on the given example that you'relooking at then of course drawing theboundaries so the question is like is itcredle to gate or is it credle to gravewhat do we mean with that it's do weconsider supporting activities for thesystem or do we not an example is for uhfor instance a warehouse that stores aproduct so direct energy consumption forthe warehouse should be part of thesystem but emission associated withgarbage pickup for the facility probablyshould not be relevant but this is kindof something we really have to thinkabout and we really think about okaywhere do we draw the line for our impactanalysis then of course the social andthe economic impacts so environmentalimpacts are relatively easy to measurebut socioeconomic impacts are verydifficult to quantify so when you'rethinking for example about the socialimpact of the of a product or then ofcourse even more the socioeconomicimpact how do you want to measure thatand you really have to find find ways tomeasure that in an appropriate way inorder to make it then of course validandcomparable and then we have therenewable versus the non-renewableresources so uh we have to think aboutokay are we thinking about renewableresources or are these not renewableresources and how do we have to treatthese two types of resources differentlyand it's about remanufacturing Recyclingand reuse because considerations ofrecycling make significant impact eventhough that depends of course on therecycling rates so this can clearly alsobe a limitation of theLCA so what did we learn in this videofirst of all we talked about technologyimpact assessments that are crucial forpredicting the long-term environmentalsocial and economic effects of newtechnologies and this is then of courseguiding sustainable decision making thenin a second step we looked at differentapproaches to um technology impactassessments to provide diverseperspective and that they have to becarefully selected based on the specificcontext and objective on the assessmentin this specific context and objectiveof the assessment this was somethingthat we continuously highlighted in thisvideo because this is not only importantfor the technology impact assessment butof course also for life cycleassessments because we also talked aboutlife cycle assessment and that they area valuable tool for calculatingenvironmental impacts across a productand of course also across product lifecycle in helping us to identifyImprovement areas and in the last stepwe talked about the steps andlimitations of lcas um to ensure acritical and effective applicationdespite data constraint and assumptionsassumptions made during the process sowhat is most important is that there arethese different um analysis types andassessment types but that you have to beaware of the constraints of course andof course about the context theassessment and the objective when doingthese analysis thank you for watching
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