A Beginners Guide to Life

Cycle Assessment
Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Author: Damon Waterworth | April 2020

A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

A Beginner’s Guide to Life Cycle Assessment

International supply chains have global environmental implications and the growing emphasis on sustainability
has prompted the need for organisations to incorporate life cycle thinking into their decision-making. This
approach supports the transition from the linear, take, make, dispose economic model to a sustainable, circular
alternative. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools provide an objective method to demonstrate your commitment to
sustainability by increasing your awareness of the impacts purchasing decisions and production systems have on
the natural environment. LCA goes beyond the traditional focus of legal compliance by encouraging proactive
management of environmental aspects and impacts, thus supporting Environmental Management System goals.
This white paper describes the key features of an LCA and how it can be used to better understand the
environmental implications of the products you manufacture, purchase or sell.

Section 1: Background
What is Life Cycle Assessment?

LCA is a well-established environmental accounting tool used to

identify, characterise and assess environmental impacts across a
product’s entire life cycle from raw material extraction (‘cradle’) to
final disposal (‘grave’). By taking a systems perspective, LCA tools
help businesses understand the flows of matter and energy
involved in the material, processing, distribution and packaging
elements of their products.

1. Goal & scope

definition
LCA follows the internationally recognised framework
4. Interpretation

developed by the International Organization for Standardization

(ISO) (Figure 1). This framework defines four key stages: goal and 2. Inventory
analysis
scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and
interpretation. The process is iterative, with many of the stages
revisited to accommodate changes in study goals and data 3. Impact
assessment
availability.

Figure 1. LCA Framework

(Source: ISO 14040)

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

LCA Applications & Benefits

Organisations can use LCA to gain insights that allow them to plan, develop, procure, market and improve the
environmental footprint of their products (Figure 2). Being aware of and understanding the implications of key
decisions can encourage companies to develop and implement innovative solutions. For this reason, the benefits of
commissioning an LCA are many, including improved management of supply chain risks and cost savings, both of which
provide you with a competitive advantage (Figure 3).

Strategic Planning Increase environmental

awareness

Green Procurement Justify decisions to

stakeholders
Applications

Ecolabels & Declarations Manage supply chain risks

Benefits Conserve resources & save

Marketing
money

Product Development or
Selection Increase customer loyalty

Process Improvement Achieve competitive

advantage

Figure 2. Common Applications Figure 3. Potential benefits

LCA & Environmental Management Systems

The ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) standard

An LCA is considered requires organisations to adopt a life cycle approach in order to continually
the most effective way improve their environmental performance. Specifically, the standard requires
to demonstrate organisations to control or influence the way products are designed,
conformance with key manufactured, distributed, consumed and disposed of, by adopting a life cycle
ISO requirements perspective that prevents environmental impacts from being unintentionally
shifted elsewhere within the life cycle.

LCA supports your EMS goals by highlighting significant Key ISO requirements
environmental aspects and impacts that facilitate proactive supply-
• Life cycle approach
chain management and drive product improvements. For this
reason, LCA is often the best way to demonstrate conformance with
• Continual improvement
the life cycle approach and other key ISO requirements. • Supply chain management

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Section 2: Methodology

Goal & Scope Definition

Study Aims
Before commissioning an LCA, you should have a clear purpose in mind. For example, you may wish to use LCA to:
• Determine a product’s significant environmental impacts
• Evaluate how a product compares to a competitor’s product, or
• Understand which changes will result in the greatest overall environmental improvements

LCA Types
LCAs are data intensive, time consuming activities. Therefore, it is advised that you align your study aim with the
appropriate assessment type (Table 1). A full, cradle-to-grave LCA may not be necessary under some circumstances.
Streamlined assessments can be useful for those who intend to make product comparisons where there are
processes or stages used in both systems. In this situation elements within the LCA are identified that can be omitted
or ignored without impairing the overall result. Similarly, streamlined LCA can be useful for assessing environmental
impacts of particular stakeholder concern. A carbon footprint is an example of such an assessment.

Table 1. Aligning your study aim with the appropriate LCA type
Type Description Purpose
Streamlined LCA Identifies environmental hotspots related to Develops understanding of the environmental
a specific environmental impact category performance of new and existing products including
(e.g. carbon footprint) or life cycle stage (e.g. those currently under development.
manufacturing)
Environmental Investigates supply chain impacts and
Profile identifies environmental hotspots across a
product’s life cycle.
Benchmarking Compares the environmental ‘preferability’ Compares and evaluates the environmental impacts
LCA of two developed products with the same of different product systems allowing you to select
function. products based on their environmental
performance.

Environmental Identifies the preferable product Supports your R&D and ISO Management System
Scenarios development options by comparing impacts goals by identifying the most environmentally
Modelling given a range of inputs (e.g. choice of friendly product development options.
materials, ingredients / substances,
locations, energy sources).

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Functions & Functional Units

All LCA studies require a clearly defined functional approach. According to the ISO standard, the function describes the
main performance characteristics of a product system while the functional unit provides a quantified description,
indicating how much of this function is to be included in the study.

• An example function could be “a hydrating skin cream”

• The related functional unit could be “one 150ml liquid volume container of skin cream”

System Boundaries
The system boundary defines which processes should be included in (or excluded from) the system of interest and
will help you determine the data required to fulfil your study objectives. Please see the example system boundary
for a cosmetic product in Figure 4. Note that transport steps are not shown but are included.

Virgin material Granulate Injection

extraction processing moulding

Ingredient Water Mixing and Distribution Use Packaging

acquisition purification filling (Store) phase disposal

Water phase
mixing Packaging

Landfill
Oil phase
mixing

Recycling /
Incineration
System Boundary

Figure 4. System boundary for a skin moisturiser

Dealing with multifunctional systems

The ‘allocation problem’ arises when a product system is multifunctional or closely interlinked with other systems
which produce multiple outputs. One option is to allocate or partition the environmental burdens according to their
mass or energy requirements or economic value. The schematic below illustrates partitioning for a multifunctional
skin moisturiser:

Skin Moisturiser
Resources (Mass: 99%, Energy: 75%, Value: 30%)
Product
Materials and
Manufacturing
ingredients Energy from incineration
(Mass: 1%, Energy: 25%, Value: 70%)

Waste packaging to
landfill
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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

The second option is to expand the system boundary as illustrated in Figure 5. This is preferable because expansion
captures additional functions related to the co-products and wastes and the resulting changes in the product system,
as opposed to cutting them off by allocation.

Virgin material Granulate Injection

extraction processing moulding

Ingredient Water Mixing and Distribution Use Packaging

acquisition purification filling (Store) phase disposal

Water phase
mixing Packaging

Landfill
Oil phase
mixing

Recycling

Incineration
(Waste to
energy plant)
Avoided production processes

Virgin plastic
Energy
production
New System Boundary

Figure 5. Expanded system boundary

Decide your modelling approach

You will need to decide on one of two modelling approaches, these are:

• Attributional modelling (aLCA): depicts the system as it can be observed or measured, linking the input and
output flows of all processes of a system as they occur. Modelling processes along an existing supply-chain is
an example of this approach.
• Consequential modelling (cLCA): considers the consequences of the background system based on decisions
made in the foreground. In other words, it describes how environmental impacts might change in response
to, for example, market mediated effects on demand for a product or coproduct.

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Life Cycle Inventory Analysis

Life cycle inventory (LCI) is a collection of data inputs and outputs on the basis of reference flows (relates to the
functional unit). Primary data sourced directly by the producer is preferred while secondary data should be used to fill
the gaps based on logical assumptions. Examples of primary and secondary sources is shown in Figure 6.

Primary Secondary

Bill of Materials (BOM) Databases

Bill of substances (BOS) Publications

Experiment results Equipment specs

Meter readings Surveys

Safety Data Sheet (SDS)

Figure 6. Potential data sources

Often the use of proxies or assumptions is unavoidable. In these instances, you should consider the most likely source,
region or outcome, or best proxy for a missing material, ingredient or process as shown below.

Unknown Assume most No primary Assume

origin of common energy use national
ingredient source input data energy mix

Once any data gaps have been filled and the inventory completed, a model of the product system can be developed.
At this point it is recommended that you review your project scope to ensure they still align. Often, unforeseen data
restrictions or quality issues mean that the system boundary or project aim are reworked several times before being
finalised. Remember, LCA is an iterative process!

Don’t take shortcuts!

Garbage In =
An LCA is only as good as the data used. You should prioritise data quality so that you end
Garbage Out
up with a representative model and results that add business value.

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Life Cycle Impact Assessment

The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) stage assesses the potential human and ecological effects of product systems
based on the inputs and outputs specified in the LCI. This is achieved through a four-step process: classification,
characterisation, normalisation (optional) and weighting (optional).

Classification & Characterisation

Classification is the process of organising inventory data according to their effects on the environment while
characterisation is the quantified contribution of each substance to each of the selected environmental impact
categories. Characterisation can occur at mid-point and end-point level. Both provide useful information to decision
makers and are therefore considered complementary.

Figure 7. Schematic steps from inventory to category endpoints (Source: ILCD Handbook)

Midpoint analysis provides singular environmental impact scores at the point of comparison (e.g. radiative forcing for
climate change), while endpoint analysis uses aggregated midpoint results to determine the impacts related to three areas
of protection: human health, biodiversity, and resource scarcity. This process from inventory classification to end-point
characterisation is mapped in Figure 7.

Be aware that end-point There is less uncertainty when modelling only at the point of comparison (i.e. the
modelling results in midpoint level). However, it is often easier to communicate end point results to
greater uncertainty non-technical audiences.

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Be aware that some impact categories are more mature than others! For
Consider the technical
example, global warming potential/climate change is a well-defined, abilities of your audience
quantitative midpoint category while land use change is not so well defined when choosing your
as quantitative estimation is difficult to achieve. characterisation method

Normalisation & Weighting (Optional)

Normalisation – how much is this?
Expresses potential impacts relative to a reference situation, e.g. per capita per year, per £ value.

Weighting – how important is this?

Ranking, grouping or assigning importance to impact categories based on value choices (e.g. stakeholder concerns –
subjective).

Note that the subjective nature of normalisation and weighting steps mean that this should not be included in LCA
studies intended to be released to the public.

Results Interpretation
The results interpretation stage involves result presentation, determination of data sensitivity, and sometimes
critical review. Here you may also consider significant sources of uncertainty.

Sources of Uncertainty in LCA Results

Uncertainties in LCA results can be grouped into 3 types:
1. Data uncertainty
• Reliability of the data used to build your product inventory (e.g. source)
• Intrinsic data uncertainty (e.g. measurement errors, equipment precision)
• Representativeness of data used (e.g. spatial, temporal, geographical)
• Assumptions and choices made to model the system
(e.g. national energy mix, use of cut off criteria)
2. Methodological uncertainty
• choice of allocation methods (e.g. allocation by mass)
• consequential LCA is associated with market-based uncertainties
3. Model uncertainty
• impact assessment factors within a given impact assessment methodology

Note: every decision you make contributes to the overall uncertainty associated with the modelled system.

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Communicating Uncertainty
Probabilistic statements ensure that uncertainty surrounding indicator results are communicated clearly.

Example indicator result

Product A contributes 17.5 kg CO2e / FU while product B contributes 30 kg CO2e / FU. Based on this information,
product A appears to have a lower carbon footprint. However, how confident are you with these results?

Example probabilistic statement

Product A contributes 17.5 ± 2.5 kg CO2e / FU (range 15 – 20 kg CO2e) while product B contributes 30 ± 20 kg CO2e /
FU (range 10 – 50 kg CO2e). These probabilistic statements allow you to appreciate the degree of uncertainty in the
results as reflected by the potential range of values. In this case, while product A has a lower mean greenhouse gas
contribution, under some circumstances this is not the case.

Most likely value

Range of Uncertainty can also be communicated visually

values using histograms and bar charts as shown below.
Less Less
uncertainty uncertainty These graphs show the results of statistical
calculations such as Monte Carlo simulations,
providing us with a probabilistic model.

More uncertainty

Presenting Results
The way you present your results will depend on:
• The study deliverables
• The study aims and application
• The intended target audience

Note that some audiences will be more familiar than others

with LCA – some people will only want to know the key
outcomes of the study put across in simple language. Results
should not be communicated in a way that is misleading!

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A Beginner’s guide to Life Cycle Assessment: Applications, Benefits & Challenges

Risk of Misinterpretation
The comprehensive, technical methodology means that LCA’s are robust product evaluation
tools. However, this also make the results challenging to communicate.
Due to the complexity, LCA studies can be used by organisations to promote the perception
that their products are environmentally friendly, even when they are not.
For this reason, you need to ensure that you don’t unintentionally mislead your audience. This
often occurs when results are interpreted beyond what is supported by the evidence which can
lead to accusations of greenwashing – something you really ought to avoid!

Section 3: Conclusions

Summary & Recommendations

• Start simple. You can always build in complexities later.
• Use generic data in your initial LCA model and use this to determine your priorities for data collection. You will
want to avoid collecting the most detailed and accurate data on the least contributing processes of the life
cycle model.
• Have your intended audience in mind from the outset. Use this to guide your choice of data presentation.
• Never adjust the scope of your study to make your product appear more sustainable.
• Take the time to improve your data collection processes and maintain a log of all data sources as this will
positively affect the value of your LCA results and save time later.
• Use LCI databases such as GaBi or Ecoinvent to fill in data gaps or model generic processes (e.g. energy grid).

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