Coupling life cycle assessment and life cycle costing as an evaluation tool for developing product service system of high energy-consuming equipment

Developing sustainable business models for high energy-consuming equipment (HECE) has attracted increasing attention. Product Service System (PSS) is one eminent candidate, in which assessing economic and environmental performance of PSS during the entire lifecycle of the equipment is of utmost importance. All the stakeholders should conclude their own benefits in advance. Yet, there is only few decision-making support tools for developing PSS of HECE, and the stakeholders can hardly apply them because of a lack of expertise. This paper articulates an evaluation tool which combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) to support the development of PSS for HECE. A framework is proposed to guide the evaluation procedure which consists of seven steps including goal and scope definition, system boundary determination, methods selection, scenarios construction, data collection, quantitative analysis and results interpretation. Air separation equipment (ASE), a typical HECE, is selected as a case study. The results show that extra economic benefits for both manufacturer and client are associated with increased investment, more environmental burdens and higher risk. Developing PSS might not always be a sustainable practice, e.g., gas supply service would lead to extra economic and environmental burdens due to frequent transportation. The suitable conditions for implementing different PSS modes are analysed and discussed. The case study demonstrates that the stakeholders can carry out LCA and LCC in a more efficient, convenient and comprehensive manner using our proposed evaluation tool.