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A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method for measuring the environmental impacts associated with a product, material, building, infrastructure asset or service across its life cycle. Depending on the purpose and scope of the assessment, it can consider impacts from raw material extraction and manufacturing through to use, maintenance and end of life.
The right type of LCA depends on what you're assessing and what you want to use the results for. The scope, life-cycle stages and environmental impacts included can vary significantly, so it's worth defining the purpose of the assessment before you start collecting data.
You might undertake an LCA to compare design or material options, understand where environmental impacts occur across a product or project's life cycle, support sustainability or carbon reduction decisions, or provide evidence for a rating, certification or procurement requirement. An LCA can also provide the underlying assessment needed for other outputs, such as an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD).
An LCA starts by defining what you're assessing, why you're assessing it and which parts of the life cycle need to be included. You'll then need to gather relevant data on areas such as materials, manufacturing, energy, transport, construction, use and end-of-life processes, depending on the scope of the assessment.
It depends on what you're assessing and how detailed the LCA needs to be. You may need information about material quantities, manufacturing processes, energy and water use, transport distances, construction or installation, expected lifespan, maintenance and end-of-life scenarios, but a consultant can help determine which data is relevant and where appropriate secondary data can be used.
For an LCA that will support certification, product declarations, rating tools, procurement or other external requirements, you will normally need specialist expertise. Life Cycle Assessment follows defined standards and methodologies and requires appropriate data, assumptions, system boundaries and specialist software to produce results that can withstand scrutiny.
Simple online tools can still be useful for indicative internal comparisons, but they are not a substitute for a robust LCA where the results will be formally reported or relied upon by others.
Yes, all of the above.
Morphum can undertake Life Cycle Assessments for products, buildings and infrastructure, with the scope tailored to what you need to understand or demonstrate. Our multidisciplinary environmental, engineering and sustainability expertise can also help translate the assessment results into practical design, material or reduction opportunities.
A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is not a Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations (PPWR) compliance assessment, but it can help make meeting these requirements easier by reviewing the environmental implications of packaging changes you may be considering. For example, carbon screening or comparative LCA can help assess different materials, packaging formats or design options before you make changes to your product or supply chain.
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is an independently verified document that communicates quantified environmental information about a product based on a Life Cycle Assessment. EPDs follow defined rules and standards, allowing environmental information to be presented in a consistent and transparent way.
A product carbon footprint measures the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a product across defined stages of its life cycle, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e). Unlike a full LCA, which can assess several types of environmental impact, a product carbon footprint focuses specifically on climate change impacts.
Start with a clear idea of what you want to assess and why, along with whatever information you already have about the product, project or asset. Drawings, bills of materials, quantities, manufacturing or construction information, energy use and supplier data can all be useful, but you don't need to know exactly what data is required before getting in touch.
