Overview of LCA—History, Concept, and Methodology

Abstract

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method for quantifying the environmental impacts of a product or service from raw material extraction (or “cradle”) to disposal (the “grave”). As we strive to understand what is sustainable from an environmental perspective, we need credible, comprehensive scientific tools to understand the system that we are trying to change. LCA is a powerful tool that allows us to study the system, measure impacts, and understand tradeoffs. LCA studies the entire supply chain for product manufacturing which includes impacts from raw material acquisition, material process, product manufacturing, distribution, use, and end of life treatment or disposal. This allows us to understand how changing impacts in one part of the life cycle affects the other parts. Because LCA attempts to assess all environmentally relevant impacts, it also allows us to understand tradeoffs between different impacts, such as climate change and ozone depletion.