What is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)?

It is a way to evaluate all the environmental impacts of products and services over their entire life cycle, from cradle to grave. Simply speaking, an LCA provides a yardstick for environmental performance.

How do you do an LCA?

First you Scope the project. That means you decide what you are trying to accomplish with the study, what you will include and exclude, and who your audience will be. Then you collect inventory data of resource use and emissions at each step of the life cycle. Some of that data is derived form published data sources, and some is site-specific data for the particular product. Next, you perform impact assessments for the inventory you developed. The impact assessment phase provides numerical indicators of all the relevant indicators for the product. Finally, you interpret the data.

How long does an LCA take?

That depends on how complicated the scope of work is. If the product is simple, the LCA can be done in a matter of a few months (or even less). If the product is complex, it may take years.

How much does it cost to do an LCA?

Again, that depends on how complicated the product is, and how big your scope is. An LCA can cost as little as $1000, and as much as a million. Most LCAs are in the $10,000 range.