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CHALLENGES IN EXTRACTING INSIGHTS FROM LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT DOCUMENTS DURING EARLY STAGE DESIGN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2023

Nicole Goridkov ,
Kelly Ye ,
Ye Wang  and
Kosa Goucher-Lambert
Nicole Goridkov
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley;
Kelly Ye
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley;
Ye Wang
Affiliation:
Autodesk Research
Kosa Goucher-Lambert*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley;
*
Goucher-Lambert, Kosa, University of California, Berkeley, United States of America, kosa@berkeley.edu

Abstract

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Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been established as a benchmark for design for sustainability practices. LCA provides detailed technical documents regarding a product's environmental impact, but its use is often limited to trained experts who share the knowledge with designers. Life cycle experts are highly specialized, and the typical designer faces technical barriers and time constraints in extracting information from LCA documents. This work uses knowledge transfer principles to replicate expert practices in LCA information retrieval to support designers. Life-cycle experts (n = 4) were interviewed to understand practices and challenges in information retrieval for LCA documents. Interview findings were used to create a set of guidelines for effectively navigating LCA documents and then tested in a follow-up task where designers (n = 16) annotated an electric toothbrush LCA using the identified guidelines. Results find designers can effectively extract information from LCA documents given provided guidelines, but need detailed support interpreting complex visual entities like charts and figures. This work is the first step toward enabling knowledge transfer from LCA documents and building a structured sustainability knowledge base.

Keywords

SustainabilityKnowledge managementCommunicationCollaborative design
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 3: ICED23 , July 2023 , pp. 837 - 846
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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