The aviation industry is a strong force for economic growth. New aircraft concepts will play an important role for air transportation for the future. Industry and politics need to know which environmental impacts and what amount of impacts occur in which life cycle stage. The EC and the aviation industry have identified this challenge and launched the CLEAN SKY INITIATIVE with its continuation in the Clean Sky 2 Work Programme. In CS 2 ecoDESIGN is a Transverse Activity. This allows an optimal implementation of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) through every ITD and IADP.
The ecoDESIGN Transverse Activity (TA) delivers a Design for Environment 2020 guidance (DfE 2020+) for the European Aviation industry to help its global competitiveness. Based on experience and progress of Clean Sky 1, this will employ a modern developed Life Cycle Impact Analysis for the integrated Clean Sky 2 portfolio of technologies and their inventories along eight defined eco-themes including eco-statements and socio-economic statements on a micro-economic build-up.
The ecoDESIGN TA takes an integrated perspective of the holistic lifecycle across the products and technologies under development in Clean Sky 2. This means evaluating the eco aspects associated with every stage of the life-cycle, minding the consumption of resources (energy, materials, land and water); emissions into air, water, and the ground that are relevant for general environment and human health, inclusively in the workshop (dust, tool vibration, chemical contact etc). Waste, especially hazardous waste, prominently addressed in environmental legislation is accounted for as well. The assessment picture is being upgraded and newly balanced in view of a grown product umbrella. Implicitly, supply chain opportunities/ factors for equipment and process options have to be logistically considered in aviation material flows.
The ecoDESIGN Transverse Activity Life Cycle Impact Analysis (LCIA) of the technology inventory rises on the CS2 level to three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
- The Re-Use Recycle Quota;
- The Ground Pollution Potential improvement (incl. indicators to equivalent global warming, chemical and energy loads, bio diversity and resource depletion risks)
- Eco-Statements with Socio-Economic Derivative.
