What is a life cycle assessment?
A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology to assess the environmental impacts of a product or service throughout its life – from raw material extraction, manufacture and use, to end-of-life disposal, recycling or reuse.
LCAs can be used comparatively to assess different product or service design options or to identify environmental hotspots in the lifecycle. This enables a business to make informed choices on how to most effectively reduce its impact on the climate and the environment, and to mitigate any risks posed to their value chain by climate change.
Further to this, LCA can be a valuable tool to stimulate innovation by supporting sustainable choices on product design, development and manufacture. With the arrival of net zero targets, new ideas, designs, products and processes will be required to facilitate the transition to a low carbon economy, and LCA can be a vital first step in this process.