LCA implementation support for organisations

Knowing the environmental impact of your product portfolio or services is vital. Nowadays, companies should be able to provide LCA data in order to disclose their emissions. There are a number of reasons for this, including customers wanting to understand the impact of their purchases, public tenders requiring LCA data or studies, and the regulation on making green claims becoming stricter and requiring better justification. With these increasing external demands, your internal need for LCA data will also increase. Therefore, you should have this information available and easily accessible.

Organising LCA data enables your company to quickly:

• Engage new customers with reliable statements
• Successfully bid for tenders
• Answer questions from B2C and B2B customers
• Decide on the most favourable scenario for investment
• Iterate for R&D purposes

It takes time and consideration to set up and implement a system for conducting LCA studies. Often, we notice that companies start ambitiously, but struggle with implementation. It is important the system is set up with care as the decisions you make at the start will have consequences further down the line. As you begin the process you may have many questions, including:

• What LCA frameworks should I use?
• What LCA software suits my current and future needs?
• What LCA database will I need?
• How do I organise my portfolio efficiently for LCA studies?
• What internal expertise do I need and how long will it take to develop?
• What are the expected costs, for instance for staffing, training, and licences?
• What information can I include in my marketing materials?

When answering these questions, it is difficult to see what trade-offs should be considered. Furthermore, public information can be unclear or one-sided. Therefore, it helps to get an external perspective when considering LCA implementation.

We have extensive experience conducting LCA studies for a range of different companies and sectors. We have completed numerous LCA studies, as well as trained LCA teams. We work daily with a range of LCA software suites including SimaPro and Sphera LCA for Experts (GaBi). This experience enables us to provide you with targeted implementation support. Additionally, we are independent of LCA software providers while using these systems ourselves daily.

Our LCA implementation support comes in many forms. We can help you ask the right questions to vendors or deliberate on what to do next. We can support you during implementation or provide one-off advice. Also, we can assess your existing plans to highlight risks and suggest improvements.

Ecomatters offers the following specific LCA implementation support services:

• Purchasing decision support for LCA databases and/or software
• Comparing the benefits of LCA software suits, such as SimaPro, Umberto, Sphera LCA for Experts (GaBi), One Click LCA, Ecochain Mobius, etc.
• Grouping for efficiently conducting LCA studies
• Selecting LCA frameworks
• Training in-house LCA teams or individual team members on LCA frameworks, LCA software, or broader sustainability topics
• Advising on externally facing claims on environmental impact
• Act as an extended LCA team member

Do you want to know more about our LCA implementation support services? Contact us here or schedule a call!