Life cycle thinking is an approach to becoming mindful of how everyday life affects the environment. This approach evaluates how both consuming products and engaging in activities impacts the environment but it not only evaluates them at one single step, but takes a holistic picture of an entire product or activity system. This means when talking about a product and taking a life cycle thinking approach, what is actually being evaluated is the impact of the activity of consuming that product. This is because by consuming a product, a series of associated activities are required to make it happen. For example, the raw material extraction, material processing, transportation, distribution, consumption, reuse/recycling, and disposal must all be considered when evaluating the environmental impact. This is called the life cycle of a product. The overall idea of making a holistic evaluation of a system's effect can be defined as life cycle thinking.
Life cycle thinking therefore also can be applied to the consumption of other socio-economic activities such as watching a movie, making arts and crafts, cooking dinner, or even doing homework. For example, renting a movie, which seems to be a harmless activity, would involve burning gasoline to drive to the video store, using electricity to power the television and DVD player, and consuming power from the remote’s batteries. However, when trying to analyze quantitatively the effects of life cycles, limits to evaluation are subject to what assessment approach is taken because the chain reaction can become so complex that it could require decades to figure out the life cycle of a specific process. Life cycle thinking overall is a way to become more mindful of the complexities of consuming products and engaging in activities and how they affect the environment.