Leveraging Life Cycle Assessment to Evaluate Environmental Impacts of Green Cleaning Products

Abstract

The green cleaning industry continues to pursue products that reduce or eliminate impacts on human health and the environment; however, these impacts over the life cycle are not well understood. This study assessed environmental impacts of four green cleaning products from Method Products, PBC (all-purpose cleaner, hand wash, dish soap) and Ecover (dish soap). A life cycle assessment from cradle-to-grave was performed using ReCiPe and IPCC GWP methodologies. Results correlated greatest impact contributors to ingredient composition and identified the need to improve data quality. Based on the findings, a prioritized list of actions for green cleaning companies was developed.

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Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
2212-8271 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of the Conference “22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle Engineering.
The 22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle Engineering
Leveraging life cycle assessment to evaluate environmental impacts of
green cleaning products
Kathryn G. Van Lieshout a,*, Cindy Bayley a, Sarah O. Akinlabi b, Lisa von Rabenau c, David
Dornfeld a
aDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94709, United States
b Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
c Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Technische Universität Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-303-917-2761. E-mail address: kvanlieshout@berkeley.edu
Abstract
The green cleaning industry continues to pursue products that reduce or eliminate impacts on human health and the environment; however,
these impacts over the life cycle are not well understood. This study assessed environmental impacts of four green cleaning products from
Method Products, PBC (all-purpose cleaner, hand wash, dish soap) and Ecover (dish soap). A life cycle assessment from cradle-to-grave was
performed and ReCiPe and IPCC GWP methodologies were applied. Results correlated greatest impact contributors to ingredient composition
and identified the need to improve data quality. Based on the findings, a prioritized list of actions for green cleaning was developed.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of the Conference “22nd CIRP conference on Life Cycle
Engineering.
Keywords: life cycle assessment; cleaning products; ecological footprint; global warming potential; sustainability
1. Introduction
Among a complex and ever-changing chemical market, the
need to understand the impact cleaning products have on our
health and environment has become increasingly vital. Global
production of chemicals is expected to grow at a rate of 3%
each year, significantly faster than the population growth rate.
Meanwhile, production, price, and performance drive the U.S.
chemical market rather than human health and the
environment (1). To this end, green chemistry aims to
“design... chemical products and processes [that] reduce or
eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances” (2).
The green cleaning industry has grown through demand by
consumers for environmentally friendly products while
maintaining product effectiveness, as well as through pressure
by industry regulations. With over 85% of our lives being
spent indoors in the United States (3), it is important to
address the health hazards of cleaning products. Many
cleaning product companies have begun pursuing greener
chemicals as they foresee not only social and environmental
benefits but economic benefits as well. According to a 2011
report by Pike Research (4), transitioning from petroleum-
based chemicals to green chemicals has the potential to save
industry $65.5 billion by 2020. Additionally, new regulations
soon to be enforced by the European Union require that
cleaning products display their Product Environmental
Footprint (PEF) on packaging labels (5).
2. Background
Many attempts have been made to understand the health
and environmental hazards of green cleaning products, but
very few have examined products over their entire life cycle.
Current practices frequently focus on human toxicity impacts
from using the formulations. To accomplish this, chemicals
are often screened by third party companies such as
McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MDBC), Pharos,
or Green Screen. However these do not encompass the full
extent of impacts over products’ life cycles. Other evaluation
methods include Cradle to Cradle, a certificate program that

2 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000
rates products in terms of material, energy, water, and social
factors (6). On occasion, companies have developed their own
frameworks, such as Ecover’s “Diamond Model,” by which
they evaluate all of their products across the entire life cycle
(7). Furthermore, some companies have performed life cycle
assessments of their products for internal purposes, but these
assessments are not typically public. While all these methods
aim to quantify environmental impacts, they are limited by
having a narrow scope or by not being standardized.
Comprehensive life cycle assessments (LCA) of chemical
products have been sparse and inconsistent in their
methodologies, and few have focused on cleaning products.
When examining LCA trends in pharmaceutical and chemical
industries, Jiménez-González and Overcash (8) indicated that
inventory data is not available for most chemicals in life cycle
inventory (LCI) databases. Possibly as a result, many groups
have formulated their own methodologies for LCA of
chemical products. Jiménez-González et al. (9) summarized
primary green metrics in areas of resources, materials,
processing, cleaning, life cycle assessment, renewability, and
others. Yu et al. (10) developed an analytic hierarchy process
approach that resulted in a single score environmental metric,
while Saouter et al. (11) used risk quotients (a function of
consumption, removal, sewage flow, dilution).
There are a few existing studies that use LCA to evaluate
the environmental impacts of cleaning products. An existing
comparative LCA study by Kapur et al. (12) demonstrated that
general purpose cleaning products compliant to the Green Seal
Standard for Cleaning Products for Industrial and Institutional
Use, GS-37, had substantially lower environmental impacts
than conventional cleaning products in the market. Kuta et al.
(13) performed a life cycle inventory (LCI) of two hard
surface cleaning products from Procter & Gamble (P&G) in
order to “develop baseline information on the relative
contribution of various ingredients, processes, and consumer
use and disposal to total resource use and emissions.” The
authors of this paper argue that “the true value of LCI is the
realization that a change in one portion of a product’s life
cycle will have some effect (either positive or negative) in
other areas of the product’s life cycle. By applying this ‘life
cycle thinking’ to the product design process, true
improvement opportunities can be identified” (13). Saouter
and van Hoof (14) used SimaPro to construct a LCI database
for examining P&G laundry detergents. With this database
and CML92 methodology, they performed a life cycle impact
assessment (LCIA) from cradle-to-grave of a hypothetical
laundry detergent used in Belgium excluding transportation.
This study maintains that “LCIA is the appropriate tool to help
determine to what extent a particular product, process or
ingredient's emissions may be associated with a particular
impact category” (14).
Compared to conventional cleaning products, green
cleaning products already have reduced health and
environmental impacts, yet the impacts over the life cycle
remain to be understood. The purpose of this investigation is
to evaluate life cycle environmental impacts of several green
cleaning products in order to identify opportunities for
improvement within product formulations and across product
life cycles. This study demonstrates how through a
comprehensive analysis, a prioritized list of actions for green
cleaning companies can be developed in order to augment
their current methods of creating environmentally-friendly
products.
3. Methodology
Environmental impacts were determined by means of a life
cycle assessment (LCA), following ISO 14040 guidelines
through the process of: goal and scope definition, inventory
analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (15). Products
were analyzed from cradle-to-grave, which is defined as
considering the impacts from raw material extraction through
production and use to disposal. Fig. 1 delineates the specific
phases of the life cycle that were included in this analysis.
System Boundary 1 considers the ingredients within each
product formulation and System Boundary 2 assesses impacts
based on life cycle stages (product formulation, use,
transportation, and end-of-life). It is important to note that
packaging was excluded from the analysis, as both companies
have already performed detailed LCAs on their packaging.
Fig. 1. Simplified system boundary diagram for evaluated products.
The analysis was conducted using LCA software SimaPro
8 (16) with the ecoinvent v3 database (17). Analysis
methodologies included IPCC GWP 100a (18) and ReCiPe
Endpoint H (19) to determine global warming potential
(GWP) and categorical environmental impacts, respectively.
The 18 impact categories included in ReCiPe are: climate
change, ozone depletion, terrestrial acidification, freshwater
eutrophication, marine eutrophication, human toxicity,
photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter
formation, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater ecotoxicity,
marine ecotoxicity, ionizing radiation, agricultural land
occupation, urban land occupation, natural land
transformation, water depletion, metal depletion, and fossil
depletion. European E/A normalization factors in ReCiPe
were applied to impact categories to achieve a single score
evaluation represented as ‘millipoints’.

Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000 3
The selected methodologies provide comprehensive
representations of environmental impacts and communicable
results. The ReCiPe methodology provides a “harmonized” set
of modeling principles and the middle-ground, hierarchist (H)
perspective represents “the most common policy principles
with regards to time-frame and other issues” (20). Similarly,
global warming potential as determined by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over a
100 year timeframe – “the default for the Kyoto protocol and
for carbon footprint studies” (21) – provides a metric that is
communicable and trusted among companies.
4. Case Study
Method Products, PBC, a U.S. based company founded in
2001, specializes in high quality and environmentally-friendly
cleaning products made from naturally derived surfactants and
ingredients. Method prides itself in utilizing recycled and, in
most cases, recyclable materials for its product packaging
(22). Ecover, a Belgium based company, also specializes in
green cleaning products and maintains that it uses
environmentally-friendly plant-based ingredients in its product
formulations (23). In September 2012, both companies
merged to form the world’s largest green cleaning product
company (24).
Four products from Method Products, PBC and Ecover
were evaluated in this study: Method all-purpose cleaner
(MAPC), Method dish soap (MDS), Method hand wash
(MHW), and Ecover dish soap (EDS). These products were
chosen as they are representative of the companies’ product
lines. Given the differing applications of the products being
considered, a functional unit of “1 kg of product” was
selected. Product formulation, use of products, and end-of-life
phases were included, as well as transportation in-between life
cycle phases.
4.1. Product Formulation
In performing this analysis, Method provided the quantities
and ingredients for the product formulations of the four
products evaluated. Dyes and fragrances (which make up less
than 0.01% of the products) were not included because their
formulations are considered proprietary information. All other
ingredients were included.
Of the 19 unique chemical ingredients present across all
four products, only six ingredients were directly present in the
SimaPro database. For those not directly available, proxy
chemicals were developed based on the chemical formulation,
molecular weights, and common manufacturing methods.
Sensitivity analyses were performed when multiple options
were possible. For example, sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), a
commonly used surfactant, was represented as 60% fatty
alcohol sulfate and 40% sodium carbonate. Eight proxies were
developed for SLS representing four different feedstock
varieties (coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, and
petrochemical). If all proxy choices produced comparable
environmental impacts, an average case was selected, but if
impacts varied significantly, both the high and low case were
modeled. Similarly, cocamidopropyl betaine (CAPB) was
mapped to 73% esterquat from coconut and palm kernel oil
and 27% chloroacetic acid based on the chemical formulation
and molecular weights. To determine opportunities for
improvements within product formulas, several feedstock
options were evaluated; for example, fatty alcohol sulfate
from coconut, palm kernel, and palm fruit were compared.
4.2. Use
Water consumption during the use phase of dish soap and
hand wash were estimated based on average consumer data.
Approximate soap doses for washing hands and dishes were
measured based on the bottles’ controlled dispensing
mechanism. With water consumption averages for washing
hands and dishes from the US Geological Survey (USGS) (25)
and estimated dosage amounts, the total mass of water
consumed per kilogram of product was estimated as 1200 kg
and 5200 kg of water for hand wash and dish soap,
respectively. It was assumed that no water is consumed while
using Method’s all-purpose cleaner.
4.3. Transportation
Considering transportation, Method provided information
about its supply chain and the locations of main suppliers and
distributors. This analysis assumed transportation methods and
distances for an average case in Method’s and Ecover’s supply
chain, which included transport from suppliers to a bottling
factory, bottling factory to regional distributor, and regional
distributor to user (Table 1). Method uses a renewable
biodiesel fuel blend for approximately a third of its shipments
and estimates that these trucks produce 20% less carbon and
air pollutants than conventional trucks (26). Since biodiesel
transportation was not included in the database and literature
is sparse, sensitivity analyses were performed around this
transportation segment. Nanaki and Koroneos (27) found
biodiesel transportation to have 60% reduced environmental
impacts compared to diesel transportation in Greece, but this
was for cars, not trucks, and other studies have not verified
this claim. For a sensitivity analysis, we assumed impacts of
biodiesel trucking are equal to 60%, 30%, and 0% of the
impacts of diesel trucking.
Table 1. Summary of average transportation methods and distances.
Transportation Segment
Method
Distance (km)
Suppliers to factory
Diesel truck
1200
Factory to regional distributor
Freight train
3400
Regional distributor to user
Biodiesel truck
800
4.4. End-of-Life
When cleaning products have reached their end-of-life,
they can exit households through various streams, including
wastewater, municipal solid waste, and evaporation. Based on
the available end-of-life options in SimaPro, we assumed that
all products are disposed entirely as non-durable (soft) goods
in the United States. This non-durable waste scenario includes
products that are either used up entirely after a single use, such
as with cleaning products, or have a lifespan less than three

4 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000
years (16). It is important to note that the impacts from this
disposal scenario encompass the total municipal waste stream
in the United States, and therefore there is no differentiation
between green cleaning products and other non-durable goods,
such as cosmetics, conventional cleaning products, or
clothing. Packaging disposal was excluded from this analysis.
5. Results
Products were analyzed from cradle-to-gate (System
Boundary 1) and from cradle-to-grave (System Boundary 2).
System Boundary 1 analysis indicated sodium lauryl sulfate
(SLS) contributes most of the environmental impacts in the
hand wash and dish soaps, while lauryl glucoside and decyl
glucoside contribute 64% of the impacts in the all-purpose
cleaner (Fig. 2). These ingredients are also present in high
quantities in the formulation, which increases their likelihood
of dominating environmental impacts. Within SLS
formulation, the majority of the impacts are attributed to the
fatty alcohol sulfate feedstock. For SLS, fatty alcohol sulfate
from coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, and petrochemical
sources were tested, and no significant impact reductions were
discovered across feedstock types.
Fig. 2. ReCiPe Endpoint H impacts by ingredient (System Boundary 1).
Other* includes ingredients that contribute less than 5% to product impacts.
MAPC = Method all-purpose cleaner, MHW = Method hand wash, MDS =
Method dish soap, EDS = Ecover dish soap, SLS = sodium lauryl sulfate,
CAPB = cocamidopropyl betaine, CAP-HS = cocamidopropyl
hydroxysultaine.
Environmental impacts with respect to life cycle stage were
quantified with ReCiPe Endpoint H (Fig. 3). For Method all-
purpose cleaner, 49% of the impacts come from disposal at
end-of-life. For Method hand wash, 46% and 28% of the
impacts come from the product formulation and water during
use, respectively. For Method dish soap and Ecover dish soap,
48% and 42% of the impacts come from water during use,
respectively.
Fig. 3. ReCiPe Endpoint H impacts by life cycle stage (System Boundary 2).
MAPC = Method all-purpose cleaner, MHW = Method hand wash, MDS =
Method dish soap, EDS = Ecover dish soap.
In addition to examining impacts across life cycle stages,
impacts were also broken down by impact category. After
applying European E/A weighting factors, the top five impact
categories were identified: climate change human health,
fossil depletion, climate change ecosystems, natural land
transformation, and human toxicity (Fig. 4). Global warming
potential as determined by IPCC 100-year methodology was
also evaluated for all products in System Boundary 2. This
assessment indicated that Method all-purpose cleaner, Method
hand wash, Method dish soap, and Ecover dish soap have a
GWP of 0.85, 1.9, 4.5, and 4.2 kg CO2-eq, respectively.
Fig. 4. ReCiPe Endpoint H impacts by impact category (System Boundary 2).
Other* includes impact categories that contribute less than 10% to overall
impacts. MAPC = Method all-purpose cleaner, MHW = Method hand wash,
MDS = Method dish soap, EDS = Ecover dish soap.

Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000 5
6. Discussion
In this study, a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment of four
green cleaning products from Method Products, PBC and
Ecover was performed and found that both dish soaps have
higher impact potential per kilogram of product than the all-
purpose cleaner and hand wash. However, comparisons across
product types are limited because the intended functions vary
significantly. For these green cleaning products, the top three
dominant impact categories were identified as climate change
human health, fossil depletion, and climate change
ecosystems. Further investigation into product formulations
revealed that the fatty alcohol sulfate in sodium lauryl sulfate
contributes most significantly to environmental impacts,
indicating a need to focus on this ingredient.
Improvements can and should be made within product
formulas, but the greatest potential for reducing environmental
impact lies downstream from manufacturing. For all-purpose
cleaner, this analysis indicated that most impacts come from
disposal, and impacts from transportation are double the
impacts from the product itself. For hand wash, it is important
to focus on water consumption as well as the product
formulation. For dish soap, a 50% decrease in water consumed
during use could reduce overall impacts by approximately
20%. With these considerations, green cleaning product
companies and users can direct their efforts towards solutions
that are capable of producing the greatest improvements.
Possible comparisons to literature are limited due to the
absence of published data, but this LCA study generally
reinforces other evaluations. Taking a surface level
perspective, results can be compared to certificate program
evaluations such as Cradle to Cradle, but this comparison is
limited due to the lesser scope and resolution of certificate
ratings. For example, Method all-purpose cleaner, Method
hand wash, and Method dish soap received Cradle to Cradle
ratings of Gold, Silver, and Silver, respectively (28), which
agree with trends found here. Van Hoof et al. (29) used
SimaPro 7.3.3 to conduct a cradle-to-grave LCA case study on
a hand dishwashing product developed by P&G, and they also
identified climate change and fossil depletion as the most
relevant indicators. Saouter and van Hoof (14) found that from
a life cycle perspective, the product use phase is significant for
environmental impacts of laundry detergents, and impacts are
also variable due to consumer habits. More specifically, the
energy used to heat the water led to most of the emissions
generated (14). Future work for this study could include
adjusting the system boundary to include the impacts from
energy consumed to heat water. Finally, Koehler and Wildbolz
(30) conducted LCAs of nine home-care and personal-hygiene
products and also confirm the influence of consumer behavior
on environmental performance yet a lack of public
information on consumer actual-use patterns. These studies
and the one presented in this paper demonstrate how LCA can
be used to rank life cycle phases according to their
contributions to certain emissions or impact categories.
Uncertainty for this analysis was assumed to be ±10% for
all total impact scores, as can be seen through the error bars in
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. Data used in LCA can have uncertainty for
many reasons, including the acquisition method, independence
of data suppliers, representativeness, temporal correlation,
geographical correlation, and further technological correlation
(31). Uncertainty for this analysis resulted primarily due to
geographical correlation (global and national data was used)
and further technological correlation (data was from processes
and materials under study, but not from Method and Ecover
specifically). As a result, data quality for green cleaning
products in general was strong, but it was poor for evaluating
Method Products, PBC and Ecover specifically. In order to
effectively leverage LCA for evaluating cleaning products
from specific companies, great strides need to be made in
improving chemical inventory data.
Several limitations to this assessment should be considered.
First, proxy chemicals were developed for ingredients not
included in the database, which may cause impacts to be
falsely represented. While the ecoinvent v3 database largely
expanded its chemical inventory from its predecessor, the
present chemicals significantly underrepresent the complexity
and size of the chemical industry. Through sensitivity
analyses, it was determined that several proxy options did not
alter results significantly; however, inventory that better
encompasses the industry would improve the validity of
results and encourage further analyses. Second, the average
inventory present in the ecoinvent database do not well
represent companies’ specific supply chains, particularly when
it comes to green chemicals. Method Products, PBC aims to
source their ingredients from sustainably managed practices,
which presumably have reduced impact potential compared to
industry averages. Third, water consumption values are highly
dependent on user habits and faucet technology. Compared to
old faucets, newer faucets in the United States use
approximately 50-75% less water per minute (25). However,
how usage patterns change as a result of new faucet
technology is not well understood. Fourth, end-of-life was
determined to be a considerable part of the overall impact, yet
its representation as disposal of non-durable (soft) goods is
inexact. This general waste scenario does include cleaning
products in its description, but additional efforts should be
made towards improving waste/disposal inventory data in the
U.S. in order to better represent the variability in product
waste streams. Finally, only products from Method Products,
PBC and Ecover were studied, and results may not generalize
to other green cleaning products and companies due to
variations in product formulations and function.
These results can be used to focus attention when using or
designing green cleaning products. For consumers, how
products are used and how much water is consumed during
use play a significant role that should not be ignored. For
green cleaning companies, it is important to recognize impacts
after products leave their factory gate in addition to continue
improving their product formulations. From this analysis, a
prioritized list of actions for green cleaning companies to
reduce their environmental impacts was developed:
1. Focus on non-water ingredients present in high quantities
in the formulation, such as SLS
2. Encourage reduced water consumption during product use
3. Investigate feedstocks and suppliers with strong land-
management and environmental practices

6 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000
7. Conclusion & Future Work
The results of this LCA contribute to an understanding of
the environmental impacts of green cleaning products. This
analysis quantified environmental impacts of average green
cleaning products, but an adequate assessment for company-
specific impacts was not possible due to limitations in data.
SLS was identified as an opportunity for reformulation in
hand wash and dish soap given its high percentage in the
formula and therefore significant contribution to the products’
environmental impacts. Taking a life cycle perspective of the
products, it was determined that the impacts due to water
consumption during the use phase and end-of-life contribute
significantly to the environmental impacts of dish soap and
all-purpose cleaner, respectively. For hand wash, the
environmental impacts from water consumption and product
formulation are comparable. The results of this work can be
used to identify opportunities for choosing alternatives in
product formulation that can reduce environmental impact.
Future work includes comparing these findings to traditional,
non-green cleaning products in order to better understand the
advantage that these green cleaning products present, as well
as assessing impacts specific to product supply chains to
account for market variations.
Acknowledgements
Saskia Van Gendt of Method Products, PBC served as an
advisor for this project. The authors thank her for her
guidance and collaboration. The authors would also like to
acknowledge Megan Schwarzman and Martin Mulvihill of the
Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry for their expertise in
green chemistry and assistance in identifying appropriate
proxies. Many thanks also to Jeremy Faludi for his advice
concerning life cycle assessment. The Laboratory for
Manufacturing and Sustainability (LMAS –
lmas.berkeley.edu) also provided assistance with this project.
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Building. Journal of Infrastructure Systems ASCE. 2003; 9:157-166.

Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000 7
Instructions to Authors for Word template
1. Locking of Copyright:
The copyright line is locked in the Procedia templates. The author may not edit the same and making it editable only PSMs. If
there are any copyright changes required, you are requested to contact Journal Manager through Guest Editors. For editable the
below mentioned steps must be followed:
Steps:
! Click on copyright statement
! Click on Properties in Developer tab
! Remove the checks from Content control cannot be deleted and Contents cannot be edited under Locking and then
Press ok
2. Docm format:
We have added macros in the Word templates for the below mentioned features. And since macros are not supported in doc
and docx format we created the templates of all Procedia titles in .docm format.
! Removal of all highlights
! Accept track change
! Locking of Rules
If .docm format needs to convert in docx format then the following steps must be performed:
Steps:
! Press Alt F11
! Click on Project (JID_Template)
! Enter "thomson" in Project Password
! Click on Microsoft Word Objects
! Click on ThisDocument under Microsoft Word Objects
! Delete all macros under General
! After deletion close the Code and Project (JID_Template) windows
! From File menu click on save as type .docx option
3. Comments added in the margin in Word master templates:
There are instances where author raising queries on what to do with key information lines such as “volume, page numbers”,
“Conference title per issue” and “Copyright entity, year, copyright company Elsevier Ltd./B.V./Inc. and Organizer Name” in the
copyright statement and for these concerns the comments have been inserted in the Word template to guide Author/JM about the
information to be inserted by them in these fields.
Comments removal from Print: In Word 2007 and 2010 the comments present in a document get printed by default. If the
authors do not want to get the comments appearing in print, the authors must remove the comments from the Word template
before printing by changing the Print markup setting of word using the following steps:
Steps:
! Click the File tab
! Click Print
! Under Settings, click the arrow next to Print All Pages
! Click Print Markup to clear the check mark
Instructions to Authors pages to be excluded from Print:
! Click the File tab
! Click Print
! Under Setting, Type page numbers and/or page ranges separated by commas counting from the start of the document or
the section. For example, type 1, 3, 1-5
4. PDF creation from Word master template:

8 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2015) 000–000
While creating PDF from Word template the below given steps should be followed to avoid difference in trim size and
margins and to avoid decrease in resolution and size of the figure images of the Word template and the PDF created.
Steps in Word 2007 and 2010:
! Click the File tab
! Click Print
! Under Printer tab, select Adobe PDF
! Click Printer Properties link
! Under Adobe PDF Settings tab, click on Edit button
! Click on Images folder under Standard
! Make Downsample and Compression fields under Color Images and Grayscale Images "Off". And in Monochrome
Images field make only Downsample "Off'
! Then click on OK and given name of the setting in File name tab and click on save
! Then again Under Adobe PDF Settings tab, click on Edit button
! Then click on Color folder
! Choose Leave Color Unchanged option under Color Management Policies tab then click on OK
! Lastly click on OK in Adobe PDF Settings tab
! Click Save As
! Under Save as type, click the arrow next to PDF (*.pdf)
! Click Save
In Word 2003 the PDF can be created by using “Convert to Adobe PDF” symbol in tool bar or the required paper size can be
adjusted in the Adobe PDF settings given in the Properties tab on the Print option. Please follow the above steps to avoid
decrease in resolution and size of the figure images.
5. Reference styles used in Procedia master templates:
Title Reference style
AASPRO 2 Harvard
AASRI Procedia 3 Vancouver Numbered
APCBEE Procedia 3 Vancouver Numbered
EGYPRO 3 Vancouver Numbered
FINE 2 Harvard
IERI Procedia 3 Vancouver Numbered
MATPR 1a Numbered without article titles
MSPRO 2 Harvard
PHPRO 2 Harvard
PIUTAM 3a Embellished Vancouver
Procedia CIRP 3 Vancouver Numbered
PROCHE 3a Embellished Vancouver
PROCS 3a Embellished Vancouver
PROENG 1 Numbered
PROENV 3a Embellished Vancouver
PROEPS 3a Embellished Vancouver
PROFOO 3a Embellished Vancouver
PROMFG 1a Numbered without article titles
PROTCY 3 Vancouver Numbered
PROVAC 3a Embellished Vancouver
SBSPRO 5 APA
SEPRO 3a Embellished Vancouver
AQPRO 2 Harvard
UMKPRO 5 APA