Abstract
The objective of this research is to develop an environmental information provision approach for supporting consumers’ life cycle thinking (LCT). We developed an environmental education program for junior high-school students, and a scenario analysis software to evaluate environmental impacts associated with consumers’ product use. The effectiveness of the two approaches was evaluated in enhancing skills required for LCT-based design of proenvironmental behavior. The comparison between disposable plastic shopping bags and reusable shopping bags was used as an example of product comparison in both approaches. The education program to systemically learn LCT was implemented in lectures for comprehensive studies. The analysis results of effectiveness show that LCT skills of the participants have increased after the program. We also developed the software to analyze environmental impacts associated with decision making in using shopping bags. It can assess the amount of CO2 emission associated with current decisions and can propose measures for CO2 reduction. The software was distributed through a web-based survey, and similar analyses were conducted on respondents. The results show that LCT skills and environmental awareness of the respondents provided with environmental information by the software have significantly increased. These results indicated that the developed approaches were effective in enhancing consumers’ LCT skills.
