Abstract The global society faces huge challenges to meet the expanding needs of a growing population within the constraints posed by a climate crisis and a strongly accelerated loss of biodiversity. For sustainability, the total environmental impact of our activities must respect the planetary boundaries that define what is a safe operating space for our civilization. Engineering must change the current focus on eco-efficiency to a search for solutions that are effective in terms of operating within the share of the total pollution space that they can claim. Engineering for environmental sustainability must be life cycle engineering, and the paper positions it relative to the constraints given by the boundaries of the ecosystems, the targets of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals and the strategies for a circular economy. This top-down perspective is combined with a bottom-up perspective from the life cycle of the product and technology. For each stage of the life cycle, the contents of the toolbox for life cycle engineering are reviewed, and a perspective is given on how absolute environmental sustainability requirements can be incorporated in a target-driven life cycle engineering.

中文翻译：

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绝对可持续性：生命周期工程的挑战

摘要 在气候危机和生物多样性急剧加速丧失的限制下，全球社会面临着满足不断增长人口不断增长的需求的巨大挑战。为了可持续性，我们的活动对环境的总体影响必须尊重定义我们文明安全运行空间的行星边界。工程必须改变目前对生态效率的关注，以寻求在他们可以声称的总污染空间份额内有效运行的解决方案。环境可持续性工程必须是生命周期工程，本文将其定位于生态系统边界、联合国可持续发展目标的目标和循环经济战略所赋予的约束条件。这种自上而下的视角与产品和技术生命周期的自下而上的视角相结合。对于生命周期的每个阶段，审查生命周期工程工具箱的内容，并就如何将绝对环境可持续性要求纳入目标驱动的生命周期工程提出了看法。