By Raymond Wang 2024/4/25
Introduction to LCA
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has evolved significantly over the past three decades, becoming a key tool in environmental management and decision-making. LCA helps organizations assess the environmental impacts of products throughout their lifecycle, from raw material extraction to disposal. The adoption of LCA into ISO standards and environmental product declarations marks its importance and broad acceptance.

LCA concept assumes that: every man-made product is made from all kinds of resources, and it always uses all kinds of resources to exploit, and then produces all kinds of intermediate raw materials, and then sub-produces to the end-product. This is the whole process of life cycle.

It is to construct a method that we can quantitatively evaluate the whole process of the life cycle of all kinds of products, starting from the exploitation of all kinds of resources in the upstream, to the production of raw materials in the middle of the downstream, to the production of parts, to the final products, and to the use of products, and after the whole process of the life cycle until it becomes waste. We then can calculate the impacts at various stages and summarize all impacts on various resources from the environment.

2. Practical Applications of LCA
LCA is extensively applied across various industries to enhance product sustainability and optimize supply chain decisions. By integrating LCA into corporate strategy and implementation of CARBON ACCOUNTING, companies can not only improve their environmental footprint but also gain a competitive advantage by enhancing product design and consumer transparency.

Standards and Guidelines related to LCA:
LCA concepts first announced around 1990. Ten years later, it was written into the ISO LCA standards around 1997 to 2018. LCA also become essential in EU’s PEF law in 2024.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), 1997, 2006: IS014040 series Modeling and quantifying the whole-process resource environmental impact/efficiency of various products to support improvement.
EPD/PCR, Type III Environmental Declaration, 2006: IS014025 It is also known as Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)and Product Category Rules (PCR) for Certification/Carbon Footprint Label.
Product Carbon Footprint (CFP), 2008, 2013: IS014067 It is a popular standard used for Carbon Footprint => It’s a Single indicator, only for carbon footprint. EPD and LCA analysis are Multiple indicators (i.e. you can choose different Impact Assessments, like GWP100 or Water footprints)!
GHG quantification at organizational level, 2006, 2018: IS014064-1 It is for corporate level disclousre for GHG on yearly basis. There is also GHG protocol announced for corporate level GHG disclosure, to be used in CDP data entry or SBTi goal.
3. LCA Software and Databases
Critical to the practice of LCA are specialized software and databases such as Gabi, IDEA, Ecoinvent, and CLCD (four major core and more complete databases in the world), which provide essential data and analytical capabilities. These tools are indispensable for practitioners to conduct rigorous environmental assessments and support decision-making processes.

The core database is like a big collection of various data sheets, each data sheet collecting all kinds of resources consumption and pollution emissions associated with certain raw material or activity.
If we talk about LCA databases, normally we are referring to these four independent CORE databases in the world: GABI (Germany/US) and CLCD/eFootprint (China) - database and LCA software, as well as Ecoinvent (Swiss) and IDEA (Japan) – only database.
Ecoinvent and IDEA only provide databases, and their databases are also provided to other LCA software tools like Simapro or OpenLCA.
Without using these core databases, a LCA report or analysis might not be transparent enough for collaborative efforts or for verifications.
For example, you may find many EPD reports using SimaPro (Ecoinvent) and some using eFootprint (CLCD). * SimaPro and eFootprint: software, Ecoinvent and CLCD: database.
GHG Protocol website has recommended available databases (core or specific applications) for reference. https://ghgprotocol.org/life-cycle-databases

4. How to do a LCA analysis?
When we want to carry out LCA work, it is a data survey/collection process from enterprises to supply chains.
We use the collected data with the LCA software to build a product model like the bottom right drawing; one part is the green ones we have investigated (we call it “primary data”), the other parts are the blue ones (aggregated datasets of components) and the yellow ones (core data of raw materials) that are our database (we call it “secondary data”).
In this way, we build a whole process model of the life cycle, and then we can do the calculation in the software to get the desired LCA results (like carbon footprint, water footprint or other environmental footprints).

5. Government and Legal Frameworks
The regulatory environment for LCA is becoming increasingly stringent, with standards like the EU’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) leading the way. Understanding these legal frameworks is essential for companies to ensure compliance and leverage LCA in market differentiation.

EU’s PEF law says:
‘Carbon footprint' (CF) means the sum of greenhouse gas emissions and greenhouse gas removals in a product system.
CF is expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents and based on Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) study using the single impact category of climate change.
For the first time in the world, the carbon footprint of a product is mandatory! Marking a new stage of development for carbon Footprint /LCA/PEF!
6. Recommendations:
Due to the professional requirements and complex nature of the EU carbon footprint rules as a start for regulatory requirement, LCA tools and suitable local databases are essential for service agencies and enterprises to consider as the first step.
Knowledge of how to do LCA works and analysis is very scarce in the supply chain, and we need to provide more LCA trainings to supply chain on LCA tools and database.
We need to help whole supply train to do sustainability works more systematically, in a way to build a consolidated LCA datasets or database within the supply chain, in order to improve quality of the required disclosure and to be able to find a better way to achieve the net zero goal.
Thank you for helping us understand some basic LCA standards and legal frameworks.
Good detailed introduction to LCA