# Analysis of Selected IT Tools for Environmental Product Assessment
## 4 Results  
### Results of Environmental Analyses  
#### 4.1.1 SimaPro  
The ReCiPe 2016 Endpoint methodology was used in this work, which allows for the selection of intermediate or final indicators. The results displayed by the SimaPro tool show a list of emitted harmful substances. The amount of each emitted substance is expressed in the appropriate units. Additionally, the software displays the so-called process network, specifying the share of individual processes in the total harmfulness. A fragment of the process network of product A in the first variant (A_EU variant) is shown in Figure 4.  
The thickness of the arrows connecting the individual elements corresponds to the harmfulness of the individual processes. It can be seen that in the case of subassembly K, the highest negative environmental impact is exhibited by part K1, which is produced in the casting process. The network for the entire product is very extensive and has almost 70 elements. Figure 5 shows the upper levels of the network of the A_EU variant.  
The highest level is a block responsible for the entire product life cycle, the structure of which is then divided into three branches. The red branch on the left indicates a negative impact and leads to the production process of the discussed product. The middle branch leads to energy consumption during the product use phase. On the right side of the figure,  
Figure 4: Network of component K—SimaPro.  
Figure 5: The upper part of the network of product A in the A_EU variant—SimaPro.  
it is a green branch. It leads to the recycling process and indicates a positive impact on the environment.  
The comparison of the harmfulness of two variants of product A included over 20 different categories. In most categories, the A_RoW variant was more harmful. The SimaPro tool generates a detailed list of emitted substances along with the type of emission (e.g., air, soil, etc.). The total CO2 emissions for the A_EU variant were 99 kg, while the A_RoW variant achieved a result of 198 kg. The large difference between the products may result from the fact that for several years the European Commission, by publishing increasingly stringent directives, has been putting pressure on European countries to ensure that their domestic industries demonstrate a lower harmfulness of production processes compared to the rest of the world. Additionally, the greater transport distance of the A_RoW variant also affects the achieved result.  
Two variants of reference product B were also analyzed. It was imposed that the software should display only branches constituting at least 5% of the total harmfulness of the product. Regardless of the variant, the greatest negative environmental impact is generated by the production of parts for subassembly P. The main difference between the variants of product B is the presence of the transport process. Air transport over long distances is characterized by a high harmfulness to the environment. In the case of this variant, the harmfulness of this process constitutes over 5% of the total harmfulness in the product life cycle. It would therefore be necessary to consider changing the transport method in order to reduce the emissions of harmful substances into the environment.  
The comparison of the harmfulness of the two variants of reference product B was made according to the same assumptions as described for product A.  
As expected, the analysis performed in the SimaPro software confirmed that the product manufactured outside the EU (B_RoW variant) and then transported over long distances has a greater impact on the environment. Using the generated list of all emitted substances throughout the product's life cycle, carbon dioxide emissions were selected and collected.