Quantifying Our Environmental Impacts

The first important step in improving the life-cycle impacts of our products is to understand the environmental aspects of our products and the potential environmental impacts associated with them.1 The stages of a vehicle's life-cycle include materials production, parts fabrication, vehicle assembly, vehicle operation (including fuel production), maintenance and repair, and end-of-life disposal and recycling. While estimates vary depending upon the specifics of the vehicle analyzed, one cooperative, multi-industry analysis of a typical family sedan (a spark-ignited, gasoline-powered, Taurus-class family sedan weighing 1,532 kilograms (kg)) found that during its life-cycle:

• 960 gigajoules of energy are consumed
• 21,000 kg of hydrocarbon are consumed
• 60,000 kg of carbon dioxide are emitted

In that study, it was assumed that the vehicle was driven a total of 120,000 miles at an average metro/highway fuel efficiency of 22.8 mpg. The study also found that:

• Vehicle operation consumes 86 percent of the life-cycle energy
• Vehicle operation generates 87 percent of the life-cycle CO₂
• Vehicle production generates 65 percent of the particulates and 34 percent of the life-cycle sulfur dioxide

This is consistent with a recent review of life-cycle studies, in which it was found that the operational stage generally accounts for 80 to 90 percent of the total energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles, depending on the vehicle's material composition, average fuel efficiency and lifetime drive distance. For example, an ISO 14040 reviewed life-cycle assessment study of the Ford Galaxy and S-MAX confirmed that the vehicle's use phase consumes more energy and produces more CO₂ emissions than the vehicle's other life-cycle phases. Other impact categories are mainly dominated by the mining and materials production phases. These findings were confirmed in subsequent studies for all other models developed using our Product Sustainability Index.