The Power of Life Cycle Assessment: A Guide for Companies

A life cycle assessment (LCA) measures the environmental impact of a product across its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to disposal. This guide covers the four phases of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, the system boundary choice between cradle-to-gate, cradle-to-grave and cradle-to-cradle, and which EU disclosure each LCA result feeds.

What is a lifecycle assessment?

A lifecycle assessment (LCA) is a method for evaluating the environmental impact of a product, process or service over its entire lifecycle. This life cycle includes the extraction of raw materials, production, transportation, use, disposal and recycling. The life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis gathers detailed data on all inputs and outputs associated with each stage of the product's life cycle. In the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), the focus shifts to evaluating the potential environmental impacts identified in the LCI.

The main objective of an LCA is to quantify and evaluate the environmental impacts in order to make informed decisions to reduce these impacts.

Why is an LCA useful? It turns the question "is this product green?" into decisions. It shows the hotspots, the life cycle stages that cause most of the impact, so effort goes where it matters. It compares design choices, such as another material or another supplier, on the same functional unit. It provides the climate figure behind a product carbon footprint. And it shows what a product claim can honestly cover: under the Empowering Consumers Directive (EU) 2024/825, applicable since 27 September 2026, generic claims such as "eco-friendly" are banned without recognised excellent environmental performance, and a claim about the whole product is banned when only a part of it is affected.

However, the focus of LCA is not limited to CO2, and companies can extend LCA to other impact categories such as ozone depletion, eutrophication, acidification, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, photochemical ozone creation, land use and resource depletion.

The product life cycle: cradle-to-gate, cradle-to-grave and cradle-to-cradle

Every LCA begins with a decision about where the product life cycle starts and ends. That system boundary decides what the result can be used for, and what it leaves out.

Cradle-to-gate stops at the factory. Some product declarations, such as Environmental Product Declarations under EN 15804 with modules A1 to A3, use a cradle to gate approach, focusing on the environmental impact up to the point the product leaves the factory. Use and disposal sit outside the boundary, so two products with comparable gate figures can diverge once the use phase is counted.

Cradle-to-grave covers the full chain. By taking a cradle-to-grave approach, from raw material extraction through production, use, and final disposal, LCA provides a comprehensive view of a product's environmental footprint.

Cradle-to-cradle changes the question from impact to design. Adopting a cradle to cradle approach ensures products are designed for reuse and recycling, supporting a circular economy by closing material cycles and replacing the traditional cradle-to-grave model.

Boundaries are also cut inside a nominally complete scope. The European standard EN 15978:2011 is widely used for building LCAs, and whole building LCAs include all materials in a building but are often limited to the materials with the largest quantities or impacts.

How an LCA is performed: the four phases of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044

The international standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 structure every life cycle assessment into four iterative phases. They define the principles and framework conditions for conducting an LCA and provide guidelines for data collection, evaluation and interpretation, and are covered in more depth in the guide to LCA methodologies and standards.

Before phase 1 starts, four things should be settled:

• Establish the functional unit and system boundaries.
• Determine which life cycle stages and impact categories will be included.
• Clarify the intended use of the results and the target audience.
• Use primary data where possible, supplemented by industry averages or databases for background processes.

The need for the availability of reliable data is fundamental. Databases such as ecoinvent, which are licensed and widely used as a reference, provide consistent background data and enable life cycle inventory analysis for a variety of sustainability assessments. In specific sectors, aggregated data or sectoral averages are often used to estimate environmental impacts when primary data is unavailable.

Which EU rule asks for an LCA, and which result does it want?

An LCA is usually commissioned by companies that make a physical product and are asked about it: by a customer's procurement questionnaire, by a public buyer, or by their own product development. An LCA also does not replace a corporate footprint: for the difference between a product result and a company result, see the guide on LCA versus product carbon footprint.

These four phases can feed several disclosures. The Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 requires a carbon footprint based on the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method. The Digital Product Passport under Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 becomes binding only product group by product group, and there is no general obligation for an LCA or a product carbon footprint. ESRS E5 on resource use and the circular economy and ESRS E1 do not prescribe an LCA, but LCA data can support the figures reported there. My assessment: LCA is moving from a voluntary exercise toward a compliance baseline, for batteries first.

Three data gaps stall most first product LCAs. Supplier primary data: suppliers answer with a catalogue, not a per-unit figure, so ask for one named process at a time and fall back to a background database where no answer arrives. Energy allocation per unit: meters sit on the site, not on the product line, so write the allocation rule down and apply it to every product the same way. End-of-life assumptions: nobody in the company owns them, so declare the scenario openly in the report instead of burying it in the model.

My position: a result that cannot name its data sources per phase is not a compliance asset, it is a slide.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

If you need assistance with a first product LCA, feel free to contact me for a consultation.