A proposal for integration between Life Cycle Assessment and other instruments and indicators as a way to promote Sustainable Production and Consumption strategies

The necessity of a more sustainable approach to production and consumption patterns has been widely highlighted by international resolutions and directives as a way to promote sustainable development in daily life activities. Within this context, Life Cycle Assessment represents a useful tool for the investigation of impacts and the identification of more sustainable solutions within the whole supply chain (from the choice of raw materials to the delivery services and recycle or waste processing). To address the goal of making people and organization more aware about the importance of their choice, a more communicative tool is needed, useful to visualize the impacts and compare them with the actual availability of assets. The present work defines an comprehensive conceptual model for the integration of detailed Life Cycle analysis of a specific supply chain (either for good production and services providing) in the evaluation of the sustainability of consumption patterns performed with Ecological Footprint method. Final aim is to provide an instrument that enables to identify scenarios of development and to define decision support systems, to improve consciousness and responsibility of organizations that provide goods and services and of consumers.