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Information & Communication Technology (ICT) industry meets great expansion in China, in production as in diffusion, as the derived environmental impact becomes an increasing key issue in concern of Chinese policy makers. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is widely used tool for measuring ICT products' environmental impact then for estimating relative legislative measures' efficiency. Consider the vast territory with highly centralized of power in China, this paper introduces the geographical factor into the study on the environmental impact according to different categories of ICT product. From this article, the geographically unbalanced development of ICT industry together with disproportional distribution of energy consumption over different phases of ICT products' life cycle may eventually contributes to the inconsistent results on environmental benefits or loss in different regions, according to the concept of LCA. In ignoring the fact that environmental balance varies from one region to another, according to the product's category and how the LCA result is distributed over different phases of life cycle, there could be eventual inefficiency of China's environmental policy-making in subject of ICT industry's environmental impact for the past, today and tomorrow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sanitary ware industry consumes vast amounts of energy and materials; however, little is known about the environmental impacts and economic costs associated with the production of sanitary ware. Selecting a factory of a leading Chinese sanitary ware company, Huida Co. Ltd., this paper employs a combined "cradle-to-gate" life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) methodology to evaluate the environmental impacts and economic costs related to the production of one tonne of sanitary ware. The LCA results indicate firing and drying are the processes with the greatest environmental impacts, attributing to the combustion of coke oven gas. The LCC results show that casting, body preparation and firing are the greatest contributors to the total equipment, material and energy costs, respectively. The results of sensitivity analysis confirm that increasing fuel efficiency, natural gas usage and recycling rates can reduce the overall environmental impacts, but the total costs would be increased by 13.8% if coke oven gas is fully replaced by natural gas, even considering carbon tax. Based on the findings, recommendations such as using green materials and improving energy efficiency, are provided to promote both the environmental and economic sustainability of sanitary ware production. Image 1 • Environmental impacts and economic costs of sanitary ware production are evaluated. • Firing and drying have the greatest environmental impacts due to fuel consumption. • Casting and body preparation contribute most to the equipment and material costs. • Using natural gas as fuel reduces environmental impacts while rises costs. • Recommendations are provided to foster the sustainable production of sanitary ware. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]