Daniel Goleman: Life Cycle Assessment | Bill Moyers Journal
What is behind a jar of peanut butter on the supermarket shelf? The answer, Daniel Goleman tells Bill Moyers on the Journal, is a lot more complicated than "more jars of peanut butter." Goleman explains:
"The sad fact is that what we see in the store, what we put in our homes, what we use every day, all those objects, all those friendly products that we're so used to, have a hidden legacy — which has to do with their impacts on the environment, on our health, on ecosystems, on the people that made them — that starts from the moment that they start to extract the ingredients."
Responsible consumption goes far beyond current notions of green, explains Goleman. Thanks to a growing field called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), where you might see only ground peanuts and a glass jar, Goleman and many others now see the 1,959 discrete steps to make the jar alone — including all the energy and resources it uses along the way, and all it will use once it's thrown away. LCA documents the whole cost of a product by breaking it down into component parts and tracing them up the production line.
Hat tip: P+T
