Today, lubricating oils are one of the most essential inputs to keep machinery and mechanical systems moving because they reduce friction, dissipate heat, prevent wear and tear, and ensure reliable functionality. However, the environmental impacts of traditional lubricants raise questions about their alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to create a better world. Upon closer examination, the limited biodegradability, persistence, and aquatic toxicity of traditional lubricants conflict with specific goals (#3, #6, #12, and #13) that advocate for good health and well-being, access to clean water, sanitation, responsible consumption and production, and action on climate change.
In turn, the lubricants industry is increasingly adopting sustainability practices. Implemented measures include the use of environmentally friendly materials, optimizing production processes, extending product life cycles, and reducing waste through recycling and re-refining. However, beyond biodegradability and immediate environmental impact, sustainability in the lubricants industry must consider the entire product life cycle. Environmental impacts that must be considered in particular are climate change, impact on nature and biodiversity, energy and resource consumption, waste generation, emissions to all environmental media, pollution through physical effects, and use and release of hazardous substances. This approach benefits both the environment and businesses. Sustainable lubricants, including bio-based or bio-sourced options, play a key role in reducing carbon footprints, minimizing waste, and promoting energy efficiency. As a result, manufacturers are increasingly adopting cleaner and more efficient processes (in terms of waste) that align with circular economy principles. These practices aim to reduce waste, minimize energy consumption, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, a lifecycle approach can help organizations comply with mandatory emissions regulations or Scope 3 GHG reporting; create cost-effective automated benchmarks that can be used to make new assessments from existing data; and increase transparency for internal and external stakeholders.
Since product lifecycle analysis is a complex and potentially expensive task, it is useful to break the process into several stages:
- Inventory: Collection and compilation of relevant data on raw material types and flows, energy inputs, product life expectancy, and outputs.
- Impact Assessment: Data associated with identified inputs and outputs, transforming into environmental impacts using characterization modeling.
- Interpretation: Analysis of results to reach a set of conclusions that will aid decision-making:
- Conclusions, limitations, and recommendations
- Evaluation by considering completeness, sensitivity, and relevance checks
- Identification of significant problems based on life cycle analysis
- Selection of relevant impact categories
- Classification – assignment of key flows to impact categories
- Characterization – modeling of potential impacts using transformation factors to obtain an indicator for impact categories
- Normalization (optional) – expression of potential impacts relative to a reference
- Grouping – sorting of impact indicators
- Weighting – comparative weighting of impact categories together with assessment and reporting
