LCA exists to quantify environmental impacts across a product’s full life span. This prevents shifting burdens from one stage to another or from one impact category to another.
Preventing Burden Shifting
A company might reduce manufacturing emissions by using different materials. If those materials require more energy-intensive extraction, total impacts could increase. LCA catches this by tracking the entire system.
Electric vehicles demonstrate the problem. Lower use-phase emissions matter, but battery production and electricity generation add their own burdens. LCA reveals whether the trade-off delivers net benefit.
Supporting Decision Making
Product development needs environmental data. Design choices affect material quantities, manufacturing processes, transport distances, and end-of-life options. LCA quantifies these differences.
Companies use LCA to compare options. Packaging made from recycled plastic versus virgin material. Air freight versus sea transport. Reusable versus single-use products. Each choice creates different environmental profiles.
Meeting Regulatory Requirements
Regulations increasingly demand life cycle data. The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism taxes embedded emissions in imported goods. Member states require Environmental Product Declarations for public procurement. These policies rely on LCA methodology.
Product environmental claims need substantiation. Marketing materials that reference sustainability must demonstrate actual environmental performance. LCA provides the evidence base.
Identifying Hotspots
LCA shows where impacts concentrate. Manufacturing might dominate for some products, raw materials for others. Knowing this directs improvement efforts toward activities that matter.
A steel product might show that iron ore extraction and blast furnace operation create most impacts. Optimising packaging design would achieve little. LCA prioritises action.
Communicating Environmental Performance
Stakeholders want environmental information. Investors assess climate risk. Customers evaluate sustainability claims. Regulators enforce environmental standards. LCA creates a common language for these discussions.
Environmental Product Declarations translate LCA results into standardised formats. Building specifiers can compare products from different manufacturers. Procurement teams can set environmental criteria. The methodology enables informed choice.
What LCA Cannot Do
LCA measures environmental impacts, not broader sustainability. Social factors like labour conditions fall outside scope. Economic viability needs separate assessment. The method provides one lens on performance, not a complete sustainability evaluation.
Results depend on system boundaries and methodological choices. LCA practitioners make judgements about what to include, how to allocate impacts, and which assessment methods to apply. These choices affect outcomes.
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