The influence of impact assessment methods on materials selection for eco-design

From the designer’s point of view, obtaining a single indicator that evaluates the environmental behaviour of materials in such a way that it can be incorporated directly into a multicriteria decision problem, along with the other design considerations, could be an ideal situation. In this paper, five Life Cycle Impact Assessment methods were tested in parallel and applied to different polymer materials used for packaging purposes. The aim of the study was to demonstrate the need to perform a sensitivity analysis when a single environmental score is applied during the process of selecting materials in order to enhance the environmental performance of products.