Design of a teaching module for the determination of carbon footprints at learning factory assembly lines

In industry, there is a growing need to make the environmental impact of manufactured products transparent. The most common measure is the carbon footprint indicating the amount of greenhouse gases caused by an activity. In addition to a fundamental theoretical understanding of environmental sustainability and life cycle assessments (LCA), hands-on experience and practical skills are needed to be able to determine the carbon footprint of industrial goods correctly and completely. This paper explains how the carbon footprint of products assembled in learning factories can be determined and outlines training module developed for teaching carbon footprint evaluation and improvement in assembly lines.