What is a product Life Cycle Assessment and what insights can it generate?
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has become the reference method to quantify, assess and rationalize a product’s environmental profile. LCA is centered on both a multi-criteria and a life cycle approach. Concretely, all emissions, resource consumptions and other environmental interventions (e.g. land use) occurring over the entire product life cycle (extraction of raw materials and their conversion to the final product, distribution, use and the product’s end-of-life) are assessed by a set of comprehensive impact indicators. A product’s LCA is thus a holistic and balanced evaluation of a product’s environmental performance which crosses producers’ direct operational boundaries. The LCA methodology and principles were standardized in recent years through the ISO 14040/44:2006 standard series, which ensures LCA studies of high quality and transparency. Nevertheless, it is not a static field; the LCA methodology is continuously further developed and refined by many universities and other resea
