Recently the eco-museum had the opportunity to attend a 2 day LCA course at RMIT University to learn about some of the complexities involved in the process of assessing the life cycle of materials and products.

One thing is unquestionable – you need expertise and experience to conduct LCAs, and most museum professionals would baulk at the mere suggestion they do this. Whilst it was important to find out that there are hundreds of thousands of choices and scenarios involved in finding out the true impact of a product or material, the true value of the RMIT course came with the revelation of how LCA can be applied to the development and design of exhibitions and large scale public events.

Currently I’m in the process of developing a simple exhibition eco-design tool which can give an accurate indication of materials and product impact before developed design and construction takes place. To this end I’m currently liaising with RMIT in how best individual product and material LCAs can be incorporated into the tool for quick comparisons when designers and project teams are commencing the process of moving from concept to design development.

Stay tuned for more updates soon.