Life Cycle Assessment on Autoliv’s Electronic Control Unit

Abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is conducted in this master thesis, it is a significant and comprehensive methodology to assess the environmental performance of productthroughout its whole life cycle. In this study, the electronic control unit (ECU) isconsidered as the studied product, produced by Autoliv Sverige AB. Regarding thewhole life cycle for ECU, it starts from raw material acquisition, manufacturing ofcomponents, assembling at Autoliv Motala, use in cars, end up with waste treatmentof ECU.The outcomes from this LCA study reveal that total potentials for global warming are22.7kg of CO2 equivalents, for acidification are 481.59g of SO2 equivalents, foreutrophication are 5.45 g of PO43- equivalents, for human toxicological impacts are3.26 kg of 1,4-dichlorobenzene equivalents, for ecotoxicity impacts to air, water andsoil are 110.8kg, 49.53kg and 1,49g of 1,4-dichlorobenzene equivalents individually.Besides, almost 1113kg of water and 320.2MJ of energy are consumed in ECU’swhole life cycle, also generating 246.47 g of waste. All in all, the material productionphase is the primary contributor for environmental loads. The environmental impactsfrom use phase are also significant in whole life cycle especially for global warming.Additionally, other phases have the much less contribution for environmental impactscomparing with raw material production and use phases.In the conclusion section, several suggestions are given for the sake of improving theenvironmental quality, including the parts of potential use and further studies.Regarding the potential use, the proposals in terms of product development, logisticsplan improvement and marketing assistance are came up with for company of Autoliv.Speaking of further studies, some recommendations for the future LCA works are alsopresented, such as improvement of data quality, self-improvement assessment andestablishment of network for LCA communication.