Life Cycle Costing in Sustainability Assessment—A Case Study of Remanufactured Alternators

Erwin M. Schau, Marzia Traverso, Annekatrin Lehmann and Matthias Finkbeiner
Additional contact information
Erwin M. Schau: Department of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Office Z1, Strasse des 17. Juni 135, Berlin D-10623, Germany
Marzia Traverso: Department of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Office Z1, Strasse des 17. Juni 135, Berlin D-10623, Germany
Annekatrin Lehmann: Department of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Office Z1, Strasse des 17. Juni 135, Berlin D-10623, Germany
Matthias Finkbeiner: Department of Environmental Technology, Technische Universität Berlin, Office Z1, Strasse des 17. Juni 135, Berlin D-10623, Germany

Sustainability, 2011, vol. 3, issue 11, 1-21

Abstract: Sustainability is on the international agenda, and is a driver for industry in international competition. Sustainability encompasses the three pillars: environment, society and economy. To prevent shifting of burden, the whole life cycle needs to be taken into account. For the environmental dimension of sustainability, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been practiced for a while and is a standardized method. A life cycle approach for the social and economic pillars of sustainability needs to be further developed. This paper investigates the application of life cycle costing (LCC) as part of a wider sustainability assessment where also social life cycle assessment (SLCA) and LCA are combined. LCA-type LCC is applied on a case study of remanufactured alternators. Remanufacturing of automobile parts is a fast growing important business with large potential for cost and resource savings. Three design alternatives for the alternator and three locations for the remanufacturing plant are evaluated. The remanufacturer perspective and the user perspective are investigated. The results for the LCA-type LCC show that the largest cost for the remanufacturer is the new parts replacing old warn parts. However, the user cost, and therein especially, cost for fuel used for the alternator’s power production dominates and should be the focus for further improvement. In conducting the case study, it was revealed that the connection between the LCA-type LCC results and the economic dimension of sustainability needs to be further investigated and defined. For this purpose, areas of protection for life cycle sustainability assessment and LCA-type LCC in particular need further development.

Keywords: automobile generator; alternator; life cycle assessment (LCA)-type life cycle costing (LCC); life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA); remanufacturing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/11/2268/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/11/2268/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:3:y:2011:i:11:p:2268-2288:d:14875

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().