LCA Knowledge Base

Master the fundamentals of Life Cycle Assessment and understand the environmental impact of your products at a deeper level.

What is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)?

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic, multi-step procedure for calculating the lifetime environmental impact of a product or service. It looks at everything from "cradle to grave"—from raw material extraction through to manufacturing, distribution, use, and final disposal or recycling.

LCAs are governed by international standards (ISO 14040 and 14044), ensuring that the results are robust, transparent, and comparable.

The Four Phases of LCA

1. Goal and Scope Definition

Defining what you want to study, the functional unit (e.g., 1 liter of milk), and the boundaries of the assessment.

2. Inventory Analysis (LCI)

Collecting data on all inputs (energy, materials) and outputs (emissions, waste) for every process within the system.

3. Impact Assessment (LCIA)

Translating inventory data into environmental impacts, such as Global Warming Potential (GWP) or Acidification.

4. Interpretation

Analyzing results to identify "hotspots"—the parts of the life cycle with the highest impact—and making recommendations.

Key LCA Concepts

Functional Unit

The quantified performance of a product system for use as a reference unit. It allows for fair comparison between different products (e.g., "1000 hand-dry cycles" vs. "1000 paper towels").

System Boundaries

A set of criteria specifying which unit processes are part of a product system. Common boundaries include Cradle-to-Gate (factory exit) and Cradle-to-Grave (including disposal).

Impact Categories

Represent environmental issues of concern, such as Climate Change, Water Depletion, Human Toxicity, and Eutrophication.

Why LCA Matters

In today's regulatory environment, transparency is no longer optional. LCA provides the scientific foundation for:

  • Regulatory Compliance: Meeting requirements for Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAM) and other green directives.
  • Product Innovation: Identifying environmental hotspots to guide eco-design and material selection.
  • Marketing Integrity: Backing up sustainability claims with robust, audit-ready data to avoid "greenwashing."
  • Investor Relations: Providing transparent ESG metrics to increasingly climate-conscious investors.

Comparing LCA Methods

Attributional LCA

Describes the environmentally relevant physical flows to and from a life cycle and its subsystems. It's a "snapshot" of the current system.

Consequential LCA

Aims to identify the consequences of a decision in the system under study. It looks at how global environmental loads will change in response to a change in output.