Primate Conservation and Product Life Cycle Analysis
The well-being of primate populations is often dependent on the choices of corporations and
consumers many thousands of miles away. Products that affect non-human primates and their
habitats include: coltan, palm oil, tropical wood, bushmeat, gold, coffee, chocolate, tropicallygrown soybeans, and tropically-raised beef. Your team is going to investigate one of the
materials or products believed to have an impact on the viability of primates in their habitats.
This activity incorporates material from “Life Cycle Analysis: Determining the
boundaries of a project” and “The Social Side of Life Cycle Analysis” activities by
Melanie DuPuis (UCSC EE80S:Sustainability Engineering and Ecological Design, 2010)
What is LCA?
As defined by the US EPA, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is "a technique to assess the environmental
aspects and potential impacts associated with a product, process, or service, by:
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compiling an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases;
evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with identified inputs and
releases;
interpreting the results to help you make a more informed decision."
(http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/lcaccess/)
LCA is a “cradle to grave” approach that can be used to quantify and qualify carbon footprints,
greenhouse gas inventories, toxics, and energy payback, among other impact categories. LCA
emerged alongside the broadening of support for what is known as the “Limits to Growth”
perspective from the early 1970s. The Coca-Cola Company set the standard for LCA in 1969 with a
study of the resource and energy dimensions of glass versus aluminum containers. Eventually this
led the European Commission to issue a Liquid Food Container Directive in 1985. The International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14040 has developed a broad standardized LCA
methodology.
Let's start with a general picture of what we mean by "life cycle." Below in Figure 1 is a diagram of
the life cycle of some product. Starting from the bottom, you can see that all raw materials are
acquired from the Earth and Biosphere (the cradle), and at the end of their useful life are returned
to the Earth and Biosphere (the grave). Note that many sustainability advocates now promote a
“cradle to cradle” approach to thinking about manufacturing, emphasizing continuous cycling of our
manufactured materials in safe and eco-effective ways (McDonough W, Braungart M. 2002. Cradle
to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press).
When engineers think about sustainability, it is often from a technical point of view. Will the
resources run out? Is it toxic? However, there is no one definition of sustainability. This project is
intended to expand Life Cycle Analysis by emphasizing a definition of sustainability that includes
non-human primate conservation and social justice. For some this is an ethical viewpoint. For
others, it is simply pragmatic: if the creation of a particular commodity causes conflict, then the
conflict may lead to a crisis that cuts off access to that necessary resource, or it may lead to bad
resource management and depletion. Either way, it is important to understand that the creation of
technologies is as much a social as it is a technical process. Understanding the organization of that
process is a necessary part of understanding and implementing sustainability in a given technology.
Figure 1. Product Life Cycle Diagram
Commodity Chain Analysis
A commodity chain is a "functionally integrated network of production, trade and service activities
that covers all the stages in a supply chain, from the transformation of raw materials, through
intermediate manufacturing stages, to the delivery of a finished good to a market. The chain is
conceptualized as a series of nodes, linked by various types of transactions, such as sales and
intrafirm transfers." (from http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch5en/conc5en/ch5c3en.html)
The concept of a commodity chain is related to what we have previously discussed as Life Cycle
Analysis, however this concept places a greater emphasis on the perspectives of the people
implicated in the chain of production and consumption. In order to make a commodity more
sustainable we need to consider the balance of risks and benefits to different parties involved and
to consider how to redistribute the risks and benefits in the process of designing sustainable
solutions.
As such, we will consider the social justice questions regarding the commodity chain of a given
product and will touch on how different actors along the commodity chain have different views of
the world and how these views effect how we go about understanding sustainability.
Learning Goals
Content: Understand the basic premise and process of life cycle analysis, and how it relates to
primate ecology, biogeography and conservation.
Technical Skills: Practice quantitative reasoning and life cycle analysis. Consider the interaction of
social, economic, environmental and ethical concerns.
Your Team Project
In your team, each person should read through a different portion of the materials of the materials
provided, or conduct additional outside research. Based on what each of you learns, you will jointly
respond to the questions below.
As a team you need to provide answers to most or all of the following questions:
1. Where and how is the commodity extracted or obtained?
2. What primate species are affected (note: there may be one “flagship” species mentioned
frequently, but there are likely to be other primates that share their habitat)? How are
these primates affected (habitat loss, increased hunting, etc.)?
3. What is the impact on local people (for good or ill), including:
a. Miners, farmers, hunters, or loggers (people directly involved in growing, extracting
or initially obtaining the commodity)?
b. Local and regional traders (including armed groups who may profit from the trade)?
c. Local people who do not directly participate in the trade (nearby communities)?
4. Who buys the raw material (e.g. international trading companies) and what commercial
products include the product?
a. Where are the products processed, manufactured or assembled (processing or
manufacturing companies)?
b. What is the retail price of the product(s)?
c. Who buys the products?
d. What is the average use time for the product (e.g. is it consumed within an hour of
purchase, or used repeatedly for five years before disposal)?
e. If applicable, where does the product end up after use? What are the effects of its
recycling and/or disposal?
5. How can you and your fellow students and global citizens help improve the situation?
It is up to you as a team to decide how to distribute the work fairly. Use your team’s blog, wiki,
tasks and file exchange to plan your strategy and share information, then write your answers to the
assignments by the due dates. Each student should contribute to answering questions 1 and 2 by
the first due date. By the second due date, all questions should be addressed by the team on the
team’s wiki. Your team will then present your findings to the class. Be sure to read over all
comments to your team's discussion to be ready to prepare your presentation.