Life Cycle Communities

A life cycle community is one that:

  • Applies life cycle thinking to its decision making, planning, purchasing and operations
  • Publishes the life cycle inventory data for the utilities it controls
  • Educates its employees on life cycle thinking and uses that education to achieve more sustainable outcomes.
  • Works with its local educational institutions to develop life cycle assessment educational opportunities.
  • Works with its local industries to develop Environmental Product Declarations for the products they produce and sell.
  • Commits to these actions through public resolution or other formal mechanism

A Life Cycle Community

The vision of the life cycle communities program is simple: government and business working together to make products and services that are more environmentally friendly, as measured by life cycle assessment.

Communities work to make their utilities more environmentally friendly, and companies work to produce products that are more environmentally friendly. The life cycle assessment links these two together to produce an ecolabel called an environmental product declaration. Cleaner utilities mean cleaner product labels and an economic advantage to companies in life cycle cities.

Tacoma

First Life Cycle City

Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland with representatives of the companies in the pilot project getting their Environmental Product Declarations: Detec, 3M, Harmon Brewery and Richlite.

Tacoma Life Cycle Cities Resolution

Press Release: Tacoma Resolution

More Tacoma Information

Tacoma Utilities Life Cycle Results vs U.S. Average