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Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment, LCA, is an analytical method which aims to calculate the potential impact on the environment and the society that a product or service gives rise to throughout its life cycle from ‘cradle to grave’ – from raw material extraction to end of life handling.

From ISO 14040:2006

“life cycle assessment (LCA); is the compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle.”

“life cycle impact assessment (LCIA); phase of life cycle assessment aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts for a product system throughout the life cycle of the product.”

“life cycle inventory (LCI); is a phase of life cycle assessment involving the compilation and quantification of inputs and outputs for a product throughout its life cycle”

Life Cycle Management

Life Cycle Thinking is made operational through Life Cycle Management (LCM). LCM is a management approach that puts the tools and methodologies in the life cycle thinking basket into practice. It is a product management system that helps enterprises to minimize the environmental and social burdens associated with their product or product portfolio during its entire life cycle. /Life Cycle Initiative

Value chain hotspots

With Life Cycle Assessment an organization can identify the hotspots in their value chain, with the largest impact on the environment and the largest potential to reduce its impact.

In each life cycle stage there is the potential to reduce resource consumption and improve the performance of products, which affects the total environmental performance.

This example is from a tea product.

Databases

Several databases for life cycle assessments are available. Some are free of charge, others are commercial and the data quality and transparency differs from database to database.

Swedish Life Cycle Center provides life cycle data in the CPM LCA Database. The administration is mainly managed by Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers University of Technology. The data in the CPM LCA Database is open and accessible for free to researchers and practitioners.

CPM LCA Database

Go to the CPM LCA Database

Learn more about the life cycle field

There are plenty of Swedish and international actors that contribute to the knowledge building within the life cycle field. Below are some advises.

Participate in our two-day course in Applied life cycle thinking

The course addresses professionals who need a better understanding of the life cycle perspective, including the use of life cycle assessments and its role for sustainable development in your organization. It will deepen your skills and refine your methods to take a holistic approach to the environmental impact of products and services. The course is run on demand a couple of times/year.

Online training materials

The UN Environment is host for the Life Cycle Initiative, a public private partnership which aims for a global use of credible life cycle knowledge. On their website you will find training materials. Swedish Life Cycle Center is a member in the community since 2017.

Find training material

LCA in a nutshell

The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to LCA is one of the most widely used student literature in LCA courses at universities. The first chapter is translated an available in Swedish here. The Hitch Hiker's Guide is written by Henrikke Baumann and Anne-Marie Tillman, Chalmers University of Technology.

Read the publication

Life Cycle Thinking in 3 minutes

An illustration and introduction to life cycle thinking, by Unilever.

Sustainable consumption and production

“Sustainable consumption and production is about systemic change, decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation and applying a lifecycle thinking approach, taking into account all phases of resource use in order to do more and better with less” /UN Environment SCP 10 YFP

Get inspired by others and learn more

Which clothes are most environmental friendly? (In Swedish).

Sustainability researcher Sandra Roos talks about how counting on the effect of the garment with the help of LCA can help us doing the right choices.

The Environmental Footprint process (PEF and OEF)

The European Commission has established common methods to measure and communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organizations. The overall aim to increase the range of environmentally adapted products on the market. Swedish Life Cycle Center has, with its expert group, followed and influenced the process in the European Commission.

Latest news and learn more (European Commisson)

Checklist - how to get started

Here you will find an introduction and a getting started guide for organizations to learn how to reduce its environmental impact. You will also find inspiring examples on how organizations have applied the life cycle perspectives and why.

Explore the check list & inspiring examples

Introduce the life cycle perspective in environmental management systems

Environmental Footprint

The need to communicate the environmental impact of products in a credible way from a life cycle perspective is increasing. Part of the European Commission’s initiative ”Single Market for Green Products” aims to facilitate better information on the environmental performance of products and organisations. Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) are two methods that were developed in 2013 and have since been tested, evaluated, and developed. These methods are still being developed, and policies and legislative proposals are emerging based on PEF.

Environmental Footprint – An introduction to the initiative of the European Commission

The report aims to give an introduction to and overview of the European Commission initiative Environmental Footprint.

Ppt presentation: Environmental Footprint – An introduction to the initiative of the European Commission

The overall aim of this powerpoint presentation is to give an introduction to the European Commission initiative Environmental Footprint. The material contains pictures and a speaker script for each picture.

Lessons learned of working with Product Environmental Footprint

Insights and learnings from the project, including performed case studies, with the aim to improve and share knowledge of the PEF methodology, its application and insights in ongoing policy work.

Webinars on Environmental Footprint

Published at Swedish Life Cycle Center's YouTube channel. - What is PEF? (March 30, 2021) - Introduction to the LANCA method - Land Use Indicator Value Calculation in Life Cycle Assessment (November 24, 2021) - Updates on the Environmental Footprint - methodology and policy development (November 30, 2021) - Experiences of working with PEF (November 30, 2021)

Publications

Here are some of the latest publications, published in Swedish Life Cycle Center’s report series. All publications are available through the link Find all publications below. You will be able to read them online or download them in PDF.

If you can not find the report you are looking for, you may be able to order it from Swedish Life Cycle Center technical secretariat by sending your request to: lifecyclecenter@chalmers.se.

Find all publications

2022_3_Environmental footprint in Sweden_lessons learned

2021_4_ Environmental Footprint – An introduction to the initiative of the European Commission

2020_9_Nature capital and value creation (in Swedish)

2018_03-Att införa ett livscykelperspektiv i miljöledningssystem

2018_02-Using Monetary values of environmental impacts

Tools & support

Several tools and systems have been developed within Swedish Life Cycle Center. Here are some examples.

DANTES - Demonstrate and Assess New Tools for Environmental Sustainability

DANTES is a website, based on demonstration of tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC). It was a project run in 2002-2005, but the information is still of use.

Analysis tool for transport systems (TrEx)

The TrEx tool is an analysis tool for calculating environmental impact and efficiency of transport systems. The project was a co-operation within Swedish Life Cycle Center between ABB, AkzoNobel, Chalmers University of Technology, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, SCA Hygiene Products, SKF and Volvo Group.

Start here

EPS light-spreadsheet for LCA training

EPS light is a spreadsheet that is intended to be used for LCA training of designers and product developers. It contains data on environmental damage costs for production and end-of-life treatment of construction materials, use of energy and transportation. The total environmental damage cost of a product concept can be determined in a similar way as ordinary costs.

Start here

The EPS System

EPS (Environmental Priority Strategies in product design) EPS is a systematic approach to choose between design options in product and process development. Its basic idea is to make a list of environmental damage costs available to the designer in the same way as ordinary costs are available for materials, processes and parts. The designer may then calculate the total costs over the products life cycle and compare optional designs. Its history and development can be followed since 1989 and the latest update from 2015 is public available and implemented among businesses and in LCA softwares. The maintenance and updating of the EPS system is managed by IVL Environmental Research Institute.