Since more than 30 years the Department of Life Cycle Engineering GaBi, which is meanwhile also a part of the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, is working on the Life Cycle Engineering of products, processes, and services. Ecological, economic, technical, and social aspects are taken into account providing a basis for decision-making throughout the entire life cycle.
The department GaBi applies the method of Life Cycle Engineering in a multitude of projects with very different background. Customers include both public funding agencies and industry. The methods of the sustainability assessment are not only applied but also further developed. For example, the department GaBi is responsible for the development and the maintenance of the Fraunhofer Advanced Materials and Processes Database for carbon composites, which is part of the GaBi software and databases and widely used by many LCA professionals.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a part of the Life Cycle Engineering analyses the environmental impacts of products, processes or services. In the ISOPREP project there was an initial LCA model already created six months after the project start. This model displayed the polypropylene recycling process and early enabled the quantification and evaluation of the impact of the process on the environment. The LCA model was continuously updated based on the technical developments of the project partners in order to always have an up-to-date status and to be able to assess the impact through the progress. The LCA model can identify ecological optimization potentials and thus contribute to targeted process improvement.
To learn more about LCA have a look at the last press release from Fraunhofer in the ISOPREP project (“Life Cycle Assessment – basis for ecological optimization”, released on the 18th of April 2022, https://www.isoprep.co.uk/news-media#/) and the video “LCA ISOPREP”, one of several video that already came out from the ISOPREP project (https://www.isoprep.co.uk/isoprep-repository).
