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What are LCAs?
Life Cycle Assessment – or LCA – is a biography of a product. The technical definition of an LCA is found in ISO Standard14040, which defines LCA as “compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle.” A product LCA is a scientifically-robust measurement of a product's exchanges with the environmental throughout its full life cycle.
An LCA includes information on:
Raw material sourcing (extraction & processing)
Transportation–raw materials to manufacturing plant
Manufacturing processes
Shipping materials and transportation modes
On-site construction/installation
Use & maintenance
End of life recycling/disposal/repurposing
A product LCA includes all relevant environmental impacts, in particular those defined by the U.S. EPA and comparable government agencies around the world to be threatening to life on our planet:
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Global warming
Acid rain
Water pollution
Fossil fuel depletion
Indoor air quality
Habitat alteration
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Water use
Ambient air pollution
Ecological toxicity
Human health
Ozone depletion |
Developing an LCA consists of three basic phases: 1) Goal and Scope Phase; 2) Life Cycle Inventory phase; and 3) Impact Assessment Phase. Each phase of development is critically important to the overall success and credibility of the assessment. These three phases are followed by a fourth, the Interpretation,- a crucial step as it involves use of the product data collected and calculated in an appropriate manner.
Using LCAs
While LCAs have many uses, the primary use of LCAs has been for internal evaluation of a product's performance and possible product improvement. Since an LCA encompasses the impacts from cradle-to-grave, it provides a holistic understanding of where the largest impacts occur. It enables the users to determine where to focus on product v improvements to achieve the most sustainable results.
If LCAs are to be used for product evaluation and selection, they should be third-party verified by a professional with expert knowledge of the relevant industry to ensure that they meet best practices in completeness, comparability and transparency.
1. An LCA is complete when all of a product’s exchanges with the environment have been captured.
2. An LCA is comparable when the scope of data to be collected is fulfilled
3. An LCA is transparent when a professional reviewer can clearly see the source of the data and how it has been analyzed to produce the results communicated in the resulting document(s).
Free LCA Software
PE Americas will provide a free trial license for GaBi 4, including suitable data, for those who have signed up to do an EPD under The Green Standard’s EPD program. This trial license will be an agreement between the user and PE Americas for a defined period (not to exceed six months) and will include a stipulation that the user will employ PE Americas for the EPD verification process. At the end of the assessment period, the trial license will be invalid and the user will need to decide whether purchase a standard license to continue using GaBi 4.
GaBi 4 is a universal tool to address the need for sustainability data administration and evaluation on the organization, facility, process or product life cycle level. It provides solutions for different problems regarding cost, environment, social and technical criteria, optimization of processes and managing your external representation in these fields. GaBi 4 assists you with:
Greenhouse Gas Accounting
Life Cycle Assessment
Life Cycle Engineering
Design for Environment
Energy Efficiency Studies
Substance Flow Analysis
Company Ecobalances
Environmental Reporting
Sustainability Reporting
Strategic Risk Management
Total Cost Accounting
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