Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

A life cycle assessment (LCA), also known as life cycle analysis, typically assesses the full life cycle impact of a product, activity, or service, and often against 20 environmental impact categories, such as carbon, water depletion, eutrophication, toxicity, and more.

Life cycle assessment is a sophisticated decision support tool that can be used to identify the environmental benefits of your products, buildings, supply chains or services. A robust life cycle assessment would adhere to the International Standards on LCA:

• ISO 14040:2006 – Environmental management – Life cycle assessment – Principles and framework; plus

• ISO 14044:2006 – Environmental management – Life cycle assessment – Requirements and guidelines

These two standards underpin all good studies on LCA.

According to the ISO standards, there are four main stages of an LCA. These are shown in the diagram below:

The four stages are described further below:

1. Goal and scope definition: Before starting an LCA, it’s important to define a clear goal and scope of study. This will be used to select a robust calculation method.
2. Inventory analysis: Once the goal, scope and method have been determined, the important stage of inventory analysis can begin. We will work with you to collect primary data from your supply chain, or we will work to collect the most robust data in the literature. We need to understand the consumption of all materials and energy and the creation of waste associated with your product (system). We can then use this data to build a sophisticated LCA model.
3. Life cycle impact assessment: With the data collected and a model built, we can start to produce LCA results. We can analyse 20 different LCA impact categories, including energy, carbon, water, toxicity, eutrophication, acidification, metal depletion and more.
4. Interpretation (conclusions and recommendations): This is the key output of the life cycle assessment. The results will be analysed in detail to determine the impact hotspots and the key environmental impact categories. These can then be used to make recommendations for improvement.

LCA can be done for materials, products, buildings, services and supply chains. Typically, LCA studies fall into one of the types below:

• Streamlined LCA: A streamlined LCA relies heavily on secondary data and professional life cycle assessment software to produce rapid results. This streamlined approach can produce results quickly and is therefore useful for initial hot-spotting and testing conclusions before embarking upon a detailed study. Streamlined LCA is useful to determine if a full LCA is needed.
• Detailed LCA: A detailed life cycle assessment is required for maximum robustness, or if the study is comparative and to be released in the public domain.
• LCA training: For further information on LCA training, we have online and workshop based courses.
• LCA peer review: To achieve maximum credibility, a peer review is recommended. LCA is a detailed field. If an LCA is comparative and to be released in the public domain, the ISO standards on LCA require that an independent peer review be completed.

An LCA covers many different environmental impacts. However, it also includes carbon footprint or embodied carbon results. The results for carbon are still typically the indicator of most interest. They are also useful to support claims of carbon neutrality or net zero carbon.

Life Cycle Assessment results can be used to support a wide range of applications. These include the development of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)*, wider product sustainability disclosures, and detailed Whole Life Carbon Assessments for buildings and infrastructure.

LCA outputs can also inform design choices, procurement decisions, and supply chain improvements, as well as provide the evidence base needed for carbon neutrality claims or comparative studies. Over time, these insights help organisations move from measurement to targeted environmental improvement.

*Find out more about EPDs, including how to produce them, how long it takes, and how much a typical EPD costs, in our Guide to EPDs.

Turn LCA Results Into Clear Evidence for Improved Decision Making

Please use the form below to contact us about developing a life cycle assessment that can support product improvement, Environmental Product Declarations, and wider sustainability reporting.