In today’s world, every product, service, and process leaves a footprint. From the smartphone in your pocket to the cleaning products in your home, understanding environmental impact is no longer optional, itis essential. Businesses, policymakers, and consumers alike are asking the same question: what is the true cost of what we produce and consume? Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) provide a systematic way to answer this question, measuring environmental impact from every angle.
The Origins of Life Cycle Assessments
The rise of Life Cycle Assessments is rooted in a transformative period in history, the 1960s and 1970s, when the modern consumer and environmental movement began to take shape. Rapid industrialisation, increasing consumption, and mounting pollution prompted widespread concern about the hidden costs of everyday products. Landmark works like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, exposed the and negative effect humans have on the natural world, while The Limits of Growth (1972) report, highlighted the strain of unchecked industrial growth on the planet’s resources. These publications captured public attention in a way that resonates with today’s audiences, much like documentaries such as Blue Planet II, which have shaped modern consumer behaviour by revealing the environmental impact of plastic pollution in oceans.
Within this cultural shift, companies and researchers began experimenting with methods to quantify environmental impact throughout a product’s life. One of the earliest studies was conducted in 1969 by Coca-Cola, which sought to understand the environmental footprint of its beverage containers. Using a method called Resource and Environmental Profile Analysis (REPA), the study measured raw materials, energy use, and emissions, identifying which materials and processes had the least environmental harm. While simple compared with today’s LCA standards, this original work laid the groundwork for formalised, systematic life cycle assessment.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, interest in life cycle thinking grew alongside new environmental regulations and sustainability initiatives. Governments, academic institutions, and forward-thinking companies developed methodologies to assess environmental impact systematically. By the1990s, this evolution culminated in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 ,which established LCA as a transparent, robust, and internationally recognised framework. LCAs became not just a measurement tool, but a strategic instrument for informed sustainability decision-making, helping businesses, policymakers, and consumers alike understand the full impact of their choices.
What LCAs Are and How They Work
At its core, an LCA is a systematic approach to quantifying the environmental consequences of a product, service, or process. It examines every stage of the life cycle, typically broken down into five phases:
- Raw material extraction: How are ingredients sourced? What ecosystems or resources are affected?
- Manufacturing and processing: What energy, water, and chemicals are required to produce the product?
- Packaging and transport: How does packaging choice and logistics impact emissions and resource use?
- Use phase: What is the environmental impact during use? For example, cleaning products involve water and energy use as well as potential chemical exposure.
- End-of-life: How is the product disposed of? Can it be recycled, safely composted, or returned to the environment without harm?
By mapping the full journey, LCAs reveal impacts that would otherwise remain hidden.
LCAs are also flexible in scope. They can cover:
- Cradle-to-gate: raw material extraction to the factory gate.
- Gate-to-gate: focusing solely on manufacturing.
- Cradle-to-grave: full life cycle from raw materials to disposal.
This flexibility allows businesses to analyse products at a level appropriate to their sustainability goals.
The Four Fundamental Steps of LCA
An LCA follows a standardised methodology to ensure reliability and transparency:
- Goal and scope definition: What is being assessed, and why?
- Inventory analysis: Collecting data on energy, materials, and emissions.
- Impact assessment: Evaluating environmental effects across multiple categories: climate change, water use, resource depletion, human toxicity, and more.
- Interpretation: Drawing conclusions to inform decision-making and identify opportunities for improvement.
The process is iterative: results often highlight areas where more data or refined assumptions are needed. This continuous improvement cycle makes LCAs not just a measurement tool, but a framework for learning and sustainable innovation.
Challenges in Applying LCAs
While LCAs provide clarity, they are not without challenges. Collecting accurate data, particularly for scope3 emissions across global supply chains, is complex. Trade-offs are also common: a low-carbon product may have high water usage, or a biodegradable material may require more energy to manufacture.
These challenges emphasise the need for careful methodology, consistent standards, and transparent reporting. Even with these complexities, LCAs remain one of the most powerful tools for evidence-based sustainability decisions.
LCAs Across Industries: Why They Matter
Life Cycle Assessments are more than a technical exercise, they provide critical insights for businesses, policymakers, and consumers across virtually all sectors.
- Product designers can optimise materials and processes for lower environmental impact.
- Sustainability managers can evaluate the performance of entire product portfolios.
- Procurement teams can assess suppliers and make responsible sourcing decisions.
- Policymakers gain reliable data to guide regulation and environmental policy.
- Consumers can make informed choices, avoiding greenwashing and supporting truly sustainable products.
The principles of LCA are applicable across many industries. For example, in biotechnology, LCAs reveal how alternative materials and innovative processes can reduce energy use, water consumption, and chemical hazards compared with traditional methods. Other sectors, such as electronics, packaging, food production, and construction, also benefit from life cycle thinking, gaining a holistic understanding of environmental impact and the trade-offs involved.
Statistically, the stakes are high: in many industries, supply chain activities account for more than 80%of total environmental impact, highlighting why life cycle thinking is critical. Meanwhile, over 81%of consumers believe companies should actively work to improve the environment, making LCA-informed decisions essential for both sustainability and public trust.
How LCAs Reveal Hidden Impacts: Learning from Closed-Loop Initiatives
The circular economy has become a cornerstone of modern sustainability thinking. By “closing the loop,” businesses aim to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials, often focusing on packaging or specific product components. Supermarkets introducing reusable containers or tech companies designing modular electronics are visible examples of this approach. At first glance, it seems like a silver bullet: if materials are continuously reused, environmental impact should be minimised.
However, the reality is more nuanced. Closed-loop strategies can sometimes increase environmental impact if they focus too narrowly on one stage of the product life cycle. Collecting, cleaning, and refilling containers, for example, may require additional transport, energy, and water, potentially generating higher CO₂ emissions than simply recycling the packaging efficiently. Similarly, a reusable package made from heavy or energy-intensive materials might reduce waste but increase carbon or water footprints elsewhere.
This is where LCA comes in. Unlike approaches that focus on a single stage, LCAs evaluate impact across the entire product journey, from raw material extraction to manufacturing, transport, use, and end-of-life. By measuring trade-offs objectively, LCAs reveal what truly reduces environmental impact and what only appears sustainable on the surface. For instance, a biotech company producing enzyme-based formulations may use renewable raw materials and energy-efficient processes, achieving a lower overall footprint; even if the packaging is not part of a closed-loop system.
In short, circular initiatives are valuable and inspiring, but they don’t automatically guarantee lower environmental impact. LCAs provide a data-driven perspective, helping organisations understand trade-offs and make smarter, evidence-based decisions; complementing innovative circular strategies rather than contradicting them.
Standards and Guidelines: Ensuring Consistency and Credibility in LCAs
To ensure LCAs are reliable, transparent, and comparableacross industries, international and national standards provide a framework for how assessments should be conducted and reported.
At the international level, the ISO 14040 and 14044standards set out the principles and framework for performing LCAs, covering the full life cycle of a product. They define clear guidelines for goal setting, data collection, impact assessment, and interpretation, providing a common language for sustainability professionals. ISO 14067 complements these standards by focusing specifically on carbon footprinting, including factors like land-use change and biogenic carbon emissions .Meanwhile, ISO 14020 to 14026 offer guidance on environmental labels and declarations, ensuring that claims about products are credible and understandable.
National and regional standards build on this foundation. The International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) from the EU provides detailed technical guidance for high-quality, consistent LCAs. In the UK ,PAS 2050 sets out a methodology for calculating greenhouse gas emissions across product life cycles, helping organisations measure and communicate their carbon performance accurately.
Together, these standards ensure that LCAs are not just internally useful, but also credible for regulators, stakeholders, and consumers. They allow businesses to make data-driven decisions with confidence, knowing that their assessments are robust, transparent, and aligned with international best practice.
Conclusion: Measuring Impact From Every Angle
Life Cycle Assessments are more than a technical tool; they are a mindset for holistic thinking. By looking beyond single metric sand examining the full life cycle of a product, LCAs empower businesses, policymakers, and consumers to make informed, responsible decisions.
From cleaning products to electronics, packaging, and food, the lesson is clear: measuring impact from every angle is essential to building a sustainable future. In a world of increasing environmental scrutiny, LCAs offer the clarity, transparency, and insight needed to make sustainability meaningful, measurable, and actionable.
