Sustainable Development and Society - GSA

Sustainable Development and Society
Impacts of
Development on Health
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a
quantitative and comparative method for
supporting the identification of
environmentally preferable product choices
and design options. At the core of LCA is
the concept of the “functional unit”: a
quantitative measure of the amount of
function delivered by a product system or
service. LCA as currently practiced takes
the delivery of a specified unit of function
as a given, then informs inquiries about the
total system-wide environmental
consequences of delivering this function via
alternative product systems; thereby
allowing consumers to select “greener”
(that is, less environmentally damaging)
products, and producers to manufacture
greener products.
LCA’s primary advantage lies in its ability to
help decision makers avoid “burdenshifting”
from one environmental problem
to another or from one life cycle stage to
another. The current impact scope of LCA
is restricted to three “endpoints” of
concern: human health, ecosystems, and
natural resources, focusing on those human
health impacts that arise through
environmental pathways from stressors in
the product life cycle.
In addition to environmental pathways,
there are also important socio-economic
pathways from product life cycles to human
health consequences. The 2002 European
Health report underlines the relation
between socioeconomic factors and health.
Poverty, in particular, is recognized as “the
most important single determinant of ill
health.” The report notes the influence of
gross domestic product (GDP) on health at
the national level, and explained: “While
GDP [has] a significantly positive
correlation with life expectancy, this
relationship works mainly through the
impact of GDP on (a) the incomes of the
poor and (b) public expenditure. . . “[F]aster
economic growth with a strong
employment component [leads to] the
enhanced economic prosperity being used
to expand relevant social services such as
education, social security and health care...
Unemployment as a cause of poverty and ill
health is a major issue in all European
countries.” 4
The importance of poverty in the global
burden of disease is even clearer in the
World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2002
report, that found, “In both Africa and Asia,
unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene, iron
deficiency, and indoor smoke from solid
fuels are among the ten leading risks for
disease... As with underweight, these risks
continue to be some of the most formidable
enemies of health and allies of poverty.” 5
Health and socioeconomic status influence
each other in a vicious/virtuous cycle, as
increases in health promote economic
development over time. Research shows
that countries with weakest conditions of
health and education find it much more
difficult to achieve sustained growth than
do those with better conditions of health
and education. 6
Extending the definition of LCA will enable
it to capture the influence of product life
cycles on health through the pathways
summarized by the WHO reports
mentioned above. When a consumer buys a
product; or when a producer manufactures
the product, these decisions have
consequences throughout whole supply
chains and life cycles—impacts that
change the levels of activity in processes
throughout their supply chains and life
cycles. Activity levels are measured in both
physical units (e.g., increased production)
and economic units (increased sales).
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