THE PROVISION OF SUSTAINABILITY INFORMATION FOR ELECTRONIC PRODUCT CONSUMERS THROUGH MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies are designed to be used by designers, manufacturers, engineers and companies, howeverthere are very few that would be readily understood by consumers. This article explores a new perspective of sustainability assessment methods from the retailers’ perspective on LCA information and the consumers’ viewpoint in order to provide consumers with easy-to-understand and meaningful sustainability information, influence shopping behavior and therefore stimulate industry to manufacture product with less negative environmental impacts. The research presented in this paper explores the potential for providing environmental information to consumers, through the use of a mobile phone application in Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled phones and NFC tags, and proposes a new eco-label to enable consumers to compare the environmental performance of electronic products and a recycling incentive scheme.