Life Cycle Assessment

By Ethan Fonarev, Mateo Eusebio, Diego Gutierrez, and

Daniel Bazikian
 Table of Contents

Raw Materials 1

Transportation/Distribution .

Manufacturing and Distribution 2

Use, Re-use, and Maintenance .

Recycling 3

Wastes and Emissions .

Citations 4
Raw Materials

Since we aren’t creating a physical product, our raw materials will mostly consist of the

instruments we are using to create our sounds, and our means of recording them.

- Drum Kit

- Electric Guitars (2)

- Classical Guitar

- Electric Bass Guitar

- Keyboard

- Alto Sax

- Bongo Drums

- Acoustic Guitar

- Logic Pro X Program

- Macbook Pro

- Blue Snowball Microphone

Transportation/Distribution
Transportation of our product will be entirely virtual through our website. The website

will contain a set of pre-made packs as well as a vast library of individual sounds that

users can put together into their own, custom sound packs. Before making any decisions

on what they will buy, they will have the ability to preview and interact with these

sounds on our website.

Distribution will also occur through our website and be entirely virtual. Customers will

purchase sound packs, whether it be pre-made or custom, through our online store.

They will, after purchase, be able to subsequently download these sounds and integrate

them into their music production programs immediately.

Manufacturing Processes

Because we are selling a purely non-physical product, manufacturing will be done

entirely digitally. Given the product comes in the form of audio files (.wav, .vst, etc)

manufacturing will simply be automated whenever the customer purchases and chooses

to download said files. Downloadable information is created and stored on the

customer’s device almost instantly, making our products “manufacturing” process

simple and efficient.

Use, Re-Use, and Maintenance

Use:
 The product will first be purchased and downloaded to the customer’s computer.

At this point, the product will remain in whatever file the customer has chosen to

download the file to. They may import the file into a sound program and use that file in

whatever project they’re working on.

Re-Use:

After the purchase of the product, the customer’s purchase history will be

updated. Subsequently, that purchase will appear on the customer’s account page from

which they can re-download the file if they need to.

If the file is already downloaded and the customer wants to, the downloaded file

can be used to other projects of theirs.

Maintenance:

Maintenance of the product would primarily involve updates in software to meet

program-related compatibility needs.

Recycling

-Relating to Used Materials

Because we’re going to use physical materials to create some of the sounds, those

materials will either be household appliances whose use will go beyond just making a

sound or easily disposable, recyclable materials like metal sheets, wood, or wire.

-Relating to the Product Itself

Being that the product is entirely digital, physical recycling methods won’t be

necessary. However, digital recycling of the product must be solved because it would be

anti-consumer to have a customer purchase our sounds and be unable to reacquire them

digitally after purchase. With this in mind, we intend to allow for customers to create

accounts through our website that have their purchased sounds saved to their account

database. These sounds can then be re-downloaded by the user because the account will

contain confirmation of purchase.

Waste and Emissions

Since our product will be strictly a digital program there will be no direct waste

emission from our program. Our final product will strictly consist of an online program

that is only available on the internet. However, one could get technical and argue the

internet’s carbon footprint which introduces carbon emissions produced from

manufacturing, powering and cooling computers, smartphones, and data centers

producing one billion tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. So therefore, our product
indirectly will be contributing to carbon emissions due to the impact of internet usage’s

effect on the environment.

Citations

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/use-weebly-create-online-store-

14449.html#:~:text=Visit%20Weebly.com%20and%20create,name%20for%20your

%20online%20store.

https://blog.discmakers.com/2011/06/using-virtual-instruments-eight-home-

recording-tips-to-make-your-tracks-sing/

https://www.musicianonamission.com/make-electronic-music/

https://www.abetterlemonadestand.com/digital-products/

https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/building-online-stores/how-to-sell-digital-

downloads/

https://en.reset.org/knowledge/our-digital-carbon-footprint-whats-the-

environmental-impact-online-world-12302019
https://theconversation.com/the-digital-economys-environmental-footprint-is-

threatening-the-planet-126636

https://climatecare.org/infographic-the-carbon-footprint-of-the-internet/

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/what-is-the-carbon-footprint-of-the-

internet/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20study%20by,per%20cent%20of%20world

%20emissions.