5.15 Determine the Functional Unit
The functional unit of a product is a quantified description of the performance requirements that the product fulfills. Ensure you identify the requirements of your product before development.
Criteria
- Life-cycle Assessment: A life-cycle Assessment (LCA) has been conducted to define the requirements of your product’s function throughout its lifecycle.
Impact
Medium
Effort
Medium
Benefits
- Environmental:
The functional unit enables the comparison of non-equivalent products or services in the assessment of environmental impacts. - Performance:
Focusing on a functional unit drives performance-based choices for a better, more efficient, and faster user-experience. - Economic:
Focusing on the functional unit supports a robust product or service without unnecessary, potentially costly features.
GRI
- materials: Medium
- energy: Medium
- water: Medium
- emissions: Medium
Example
- Recycled Bicycles functional unit (can be adapted for the Web).
Resources
- Defining Functional Units For LCA and TEA (PDF)
- Defining the functional unit
- [GPFEDS] 1.5 – Strategy (Impact Goals) (PDF)
- [GPFEDS] 4.3 – UX and UI (Optimized Clickstream) (PDF)
- Life-cycle Assessment
- Life Cycle Assessment
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
- Understanding Digital life-cycle Assessments