All engineers should be life cycle engineers … mindful of maintenance

<ns3:p>Following a recent keynote on life cycle engineering, a vibrant debate arose regarding the significance of maintenance for environmental footprints. It has become clear to us that this aspect is currently overlooked in broader sustainability discussions. Evidence, for example from aviation, demonstrates that maintenance activities can materially shape the environmental performance of products. In some cases, they are a significant environmental burden; in others, a powerful lever for impact reduction. Therefore, ecologically informed maintenance concepts offer opportunities to optimize the use stage. We advocate for integrating maintenance systematically into life cycle assessments and engineering decision-making to achieve more sustainable products and processes.</ns3:p>