earticle

영어

The realization of “environmental management”, which attempts to create the protection of the environment and economic value at the same time, becomes an important factor for controlling a company's life and death. Also, to acquire ISO14001 certification is an expression of a company’s attitude about the protection of the environment and becomes a demonstration of trustworthiness. However, in recent certification examination, it is necessary to evaluate not only the effect a company has directly on the environment, but also the environment effect standards for delivered goods. Also in environmental labelling (Type III) which is prescribed in ISO14020 series, it became compulsory to indicate the products’ whole process of inventory information. In this movement, the company's main task is how they quantify the stewardship of the environment. The LCA(life cycle assessment) pays attention to useful methods that support such movements. LCA is a tool for the analysis of environmental burden of products at all stage in their life cycle. The tremendous numbers of the results of LCA studies have been reported recently in environmental reports of private companies, and the type III label as “Eco-Leaf” has been implemented since 2002 in Japan. These are evidences that LCA are used nowadays as a practical tool in the companies for evaluation of environmental impacts and improvement of the industrial products. According to this situation, this study examines the change of a company’s management of environment, in which they should induct LCA, and investigates the sphere of LCA, practice and utilization in RICOH group's environmental management. LCA is a tool for the analysis of environmental burden of products at all stage in their life cycle. This paper examines the possibility as follows. LCA can not only improve product design and manufacturing processes, but also enhance company competitiveness.

한국어

LCA는 제품 또는 시스템의 전과정에 걸쳐 발생하는 환경부하를 규명하고, 환경부하가 환경에 미치는 영향을 평가하여 이를 저감 또는 개선하고자 하는 기법이다. 이 기법의 대상으로는 단순한 제품에서부터 복잡한 시스템에 이르기까지 목적에 따라 자유롭게 설정할 수가 있으며, 환경에 대한 영향으로는 국지적인 환경오염물의 배출뿐만 아니라 자원, 에너지의 소비, 인간의 건강, 생태학적인 영향까지 포함한다. 이 기법은 환경부하를 종합적으로 평가하여 환경부화를 저감하는 방향으로 의사결정을 하기 위한 판단근거를 제공하는 데 있다. 따라서 LCA에 의한 환경정보가 지닌 높은 신뢰성을 확보하기 위해서는 환경정보량의 적산근거가 되는 기초정보의 투명성을 확보하는 것이 중요한 과제이다. 본 사례연구에서는 LCA를 도입하지 않으면 안 되는 기업의 경영환경의 변화를 고찰하고, 리코그룹의 환경경영에 있어서의 LCA의 영역 및 실시, 이용에 대해 분석하고자 한다.