Development of sustainable technology and product is becoming a global priority because of numerous global environmental issues, such as energy crisis, climate change, natural resources depletion, etc. Scientists and engineers have long been focused on developing new products and technologies that provide better service or performance in certain aspects. Environment related problems have been treated at the end-of-pipe fashion. However, our society has realized that environment problems should be viewed in a more global and systematic scale. Traditional industries, such as the chemical industry, are under pressure to develop more sustainable technologies and products. Chemical industry worldwide produces and consumes great amount of polymeric products each year. Some polymers are produced by a single monomer, such as polyethylene, polypropylene. But often times, one or more co-monomers will be added to the polymerization process to produce copolymers that have certain functionality that the homopolymer does not have. In general, the co-polymerization process is similar to the original polymerization process, while the supply chains of monomer and co-monomers are different. Research and development practice in chemical industry has been focusing on the functionality and usage of various copolymers. Little attention has been paid to the supply chains of the monomer and co-monomers. In this study, we will investigate the cradle-to-gate life cycle environmental performance of several homopolymer products and the corresponding copolymer products. The impact of the supply chain shift from the original monomers to co-monomers is studies and analyzed. We find that supply chain of co-monomer can play a significant role in the overall life cycle environmental performance of a polymer product. In order to develop more sustainable chemical product and technology, environmental impact of supply chain has to be considered during research and development.