This one-day course helps industry teams and researchers grasp the logic of Business Model LCA (BM-LCA) and how it evaluates environmental performance at the business model level (sell, lease, repair, remanufacture) rather than only the product. We clarify how BM-LCA differs from conventional LCA and show how it applies across sectors. Through case-based discussions, you’ll learn to compare business alternatives and understand their environmental consequences so you can make better strategic choices.

Target group

The course is aimed for you who wants to understand the interrelationship between products and business, how this influences the environmental performance of business models and its role for sustainable businesses in your organization. Previous knowledge of LCA is required to attend the course since the method requires a basic knowledge on LCA. The common denominator is the participants’ focus on sustainability, but the participants work, for example, as strategists, environmental coordinators, environmental managers, buyers or investigators in both business and public sector. We also welcome people from universities and research institutes to this course.

The course provides knowledge in:

• The interrelationship between product and business model.
• The logic of BM-LCA and how it differs from conventional LCA.
• Comparing business model alternatives and interpreting their environmental consequences.
• Reading results to identify hotspots, trade-offs, and priorities for redesign.
• The questions to ask and the information to gather to engage in BM-LCA effectively (when to use it, and when not).
• How BM-LCA supports more evidence-based business model decisions.

Course leaders

The course leaders have experience from academia, research institutes, industry as well as working with organizations sustainability work. Together they will provide you with the understanding that you need regarding the environmental performance assessment at the business model level.

Henrikke Baumann

Henrikke Baumann is a is a Professor in Industrial and Domestic Ecologies at the Environmental System Analysis division at Chalmers. A pioneer in life cycle assessment (LCA), she co-authored the widely used textbook The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to LCA. Her research interests: Interdisciplinary research, pioneer in LCA, life cycle management (LCM), actor networks of product systems, business model LCA, material flows in society, (marine) plastic pollution, effects of organizing on environmental performance. As course leader, she brings decades of experience translating rigorous LCA methods into actionable decision support for industry and policy.

Ana Carolina Bertassini

Ana Carolina Bertassini is a postdoctoral researcher in Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers, with a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. She specializes in circular economy and sustainable business models, applying Business Model Life Cycle Assessment (BM-LCA) to connect environmental performance with financial and strategic decisions. Ana collaborates with industry in Sweden and Brazil on different sectors such as e-waste, shoe sector, mining, pulp and paper, med-tech. As course leader, she turns cutting-edge research into practical, hands-on tools to help participants design, evaluate, and scale circular and sustainable business models.

This course is given within the project Innovation cluster for the life cycle perspektive, with funding from the Swedish Energy Agency and partners in the Center.