Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Do you need to know the environmental impact of your product or service? Consider a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

There is a growing demand for companies to prioritise and disclose the social and environmental impact of their business operations. Understanding and quantifying your company’s environmental impact can assist you in the following key areas:

1. Communicating your impact: Communicating the impact of your product or service to stakeholders requires substantiated claims.
2. Competitive advantage: Demonstrating engagement with sustainable practices can provide a competitive edge as consumers increasingly favour sustainable options.
3. Identify environmental hotspots: Pinpointing areas of your value chain with the highest environmental impact enables targeted efforts for impact reduction.
4. Inform new developments: Insights gained from identifying environmental hot spots can guide the research and development of new products.

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a well-established and respected method for quantifying your environmental impact. An LCA evaluates the environmental impact of your product or service throughout its entire life, considering inputs and outputs at each stage of the life cycle.

An LCA can be employed to support a variety of calculations and can cover a single product or service, or a group of products. Some examples of calculations supported with an LCA are:

The depth of an LCA study makes it such a valuable practice. However, this means that several considerations need to be examined before beginning. This includes the scope of the study, understanding the relevant standards to be followed, the choice of appropriate databases and the LCA software used.

At Ecomatters, our 15 years of experience with life cycle thinking and conducting LCA studies across diverse industries positions us as a valuable partner in helping you achieve your sustainability objectives. By collaborating closely with your team, Ecomatters can:

• Help you determine the methodologies best suited to your product or service
• Support your in-house experts
• Conduct a study for you in accordance with ISO 14040 and ISO 14044
• Review LCA studies completed by other consultants
• Apply LCA to EPDs, PEF, product claims and eco-labelling

Do you have further questions, or are you interested in LCA support? Schedule a call with one of our consultants, visit our contact page, or get in touch via our online form below.