Life Cycle Assessment of Organizations

Abstract

In order to protect the environment in a credible manner, organizations need to rely on stable schemes. The most applied and widespread approaches for environmental assessments at the organization level have only recently considered the full value chain and mostly concentrate on a single aspect. Carbon footprinting, for example, has shown that the environmental impacts beyond the walls of the organization can play an important role in the overall impact of an organization. While life cycle assessment (LCA) was originally conceived to be applicable only for products, its benefits and potential might also be extended for organizational assessme nt. The discussions on the carbon footprint of organizations and the development of the Scope 3-standard of the GHG (greenhouse gas) Protocol promoted the future use of a corporate approach. Several initiatives are on the way for the LCA of organizations: UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative proposes organizational LCA (O-LCA), using as a backbone ISO/TS 14072; moreover, the European Commission launched a guide for the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF). The main new elements of the methodology are at the scope and inventory phase, when the unit of analysis and the system boundary are defined, as well as the approach for data collection. LCA of organizations may represent a key element in the internal decision-making system of an organization, as it can provide insight on the organization and value chain and identify hotspots where action is more needed. It may also provide information and support the organization for voluntary or mandatory reporting to third parties and in its communication plan. This chapter aims to discuss the need and features of the LCA of organizations, present the several initiatives that currently exist, provide an overview of the technical framework and proposals to streamline the application of the methodology, and finally to illustrate each one with two case studies.