What is the life cycle of a product?

The number and content of the stages of a product's life cycle varies depending on the product analysed, of course, but also on the degree of accuracy desired: indeed, by pushing the boundaries of the exercise, the life cycle can be broken down into dozens or even hundreds and stages and sub-stages.

However, there are seven major generic phases of a product's life cycle:
1. Design, the phase during which the future product is imagined and developed. So, this exists in the form of an idea, developed and modelled by our brains.

2. Extraction of the raw material, during which the natural resources necessary for the manufacture of the future product are removed from the soil or sub-soil: oil used to form plastic, lithium for batteries, cotton for fabric, iron for pieces of metal, wood for boards, etc.

3. Manufacture, during which the various parts are assembled and the product finished and packaged.

4. Transport to the point of sale, during which the product may travel hundred, or even thousands, of kilometres (by train, lorry, plane, ship, etc.).

5. Storage and marketing, at the conclusion of which the product is sold and bought.

6. Use, which can last for 3 minutes (a coffee) or a whole lifetime (a piece of furniture). This phase may also be extended from one consumer to another, through swapping, gifting, sale and re-use.

7. End of life, which means the disappearance of the product in its initial form. For an object, its life will end with recycling or, if this is deemed impossible, it will be sent to landfill, buried or incinerated.

The description of the life cycle is subject to variations. Consequently, it is sometimes summarised in three key phases: the birth, life and death of the product. Each of these stages has characteristics which have a significant influence on the environmental and social impact of the product.

The birth of the (new) product
This first phase encompasses the entire design, raw material extraction, marketing and distribution process. Optimised management of this phase can considerable reduce the initial environmental impacts of a product. By incorporating eco-design practices, companies can limit environmental impact from the start of a product's life cycle.

The life of the product
This stage, which corresponds to the period of use by the consumer, is crucial to assess the sustainability and efficiency of a product. Efforts to extend the life span of a product, through initiatives such as enhancing repairability and reducing energy consumption, are crucial to minimise environmental impacts during this phase.

The death of the product
The product's end-of-life includes recycling and elimination processes. An effective end-of-life management strategy, fostering recycling and re-use, can significantly reduce waste and environmental toxicity.

By envisaging a more detailed approach, we can also take into account the life cycle of the equipment used in the manufacture of the product. Such an in-depth analysis would make it possible to identify and minimise secondary impacts linked to production processes, thus offering a complete overview of the ecological and social implications of the product.

Once the life cycle of a product has been precisely determined, the most vital task remains: analysing it. This is known as the Life-Cycle Assessment (or LCA). This approach, which was born and formalised in the 1990s against a background of escalating ecological and climate challenges, has now become the main method for evaluating environmental impacts connected with the production of goods and services.

According to the ADEME, an LCA "categorises and quantifies, throughout the life span of a product, the physical flows of materials and energy associated with human activities."
In other words, the aim is to track the whole range of environmental impacts - and from the birth right up to the death of the product. This is also known as a 'cradle to grave' analysis. There are inflows: consumption of water, oil, gas, wood, ores, electricity, etc. And outflows: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, discharges of liquids, synthetic materials, harmful substances, etc.

The LCA is considered an aid to decision making for key players in production sectors. Its results must enable measures for the mitigation or elimination of negative impacts connected with their activities. Once the main environmental pressures have been identified, there are numerous options: decarbonising the goods transport plan; rethinking product design to boost its repairability or recyclability (the famous 'eco-design'); increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix of the production plant or storage warehouse; changing materials, etc.

It should also be noted that life-cycle assessment, initially designed for purely environmental purposes, tends to apply more and more to the other major pillars of sustainable development: social and economic issues. The aim is to evaluate the impacts of the product, during its life, through qualitative criteria such as working conditions or the health and safety of workers and users; the quality of the jobs created and their sustainability; the actual use of the product and its value for money; or the fairness of the remuneration linked with its production, transport, etc.

Life-cycle assessment is a codified and standardised approach. The method is regulated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
It is rolled out in four phases:

1. Goal and scope.
The aim is normally to choose what specialists call the 'functional unit' (FU), a sort of benchmark enabling comparisons of products and their impacts. It relies, in particular, on three criteria: the life span of the product, the quantity consumed and the frequency of consumption. An example of a functional unit: the monthly consumption of bottled water by 1,000 people; or the use of a pair of trainers once a week for two years.

2. Inventory analysis.
This consists in listing and quantifying all inflows and outflows of materials and energy, throughout the life cycle of a product. Inventories require sound and ample databases.

3. Impact assessment.
This is where the environmental and social effects of the flows inventoried in the previous stage are measured. This lies at the heart of the analysis, which reveals the most important impacts, which must be addressed as a priority. For an idea of the impacts that the LCA will assess, we can use the list prepared by the European Commission.

This list includes 14 main categories of impacts:
- climate change,
- ozone depletion,
- ecotoxicity, freshwater,
- human toxicity, cancer,
- human toxicity, non-cancer,
- respiratory effects of gaseous and particulate inorganic compounds,
- ionising radiation,
- photo-oxidant formation,
- acidification,
- land eutrophication,
- water eutrophication,
- water use,
- use of mineral and fossil resources,
- land use.

4. Interpretation.
During this fourth and final phase, the quality of the results is assessed and conclusions are drawn from the data collected during the various stages. The goal: to develop solutions to reduce impacts and streamline the life cycle of the product in question from an economic perspective.

As you can see, life-cycle assessment follows a clear and standardised procedure. Consequently, companies use sophisticated databases and software tools. These include, for example, OpenLCA, GaBi and SimaPro. Some public institutions also provide open-access tools, like the Environment and Energy Control Agency (ADEME) or the European Commission.

Decathlon has been working on its products' environmental assessment since 2009. It is an approach that lets us analyse the full life cycle from the extraction of raw materials to their end of life. To ensure an optimal calculation, it is vital to have an effective tool, reliable calculation rules and representative databases. Once calculated, the indicators are there to identify the phases of the life cycle and the most impactful components. Using such data, product designers and buyers can choose the best materials, processes and suppliers.

It is essential, for this reasons, to conduct an environmental assessment of all DECATHLON and other brand products sold by the group: this is now the case for over 50% of the company's models representing 97% of its turnover.

Since 2021, DECATHLON has employed a specialised and internal digital solution for its environmental assessments. It uses a reference database based on the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method developed under the supervision of the European Commission. . This tool gives a reliable and comparable score by standardising and weighting sixteen categories of impacts (climate change, use of water resources, fine particle emissions, etc.).

Thus, the calculations of the impacts of DECATHLON products are now aligned with the most advanced life-cycle assessment method in Europe.