Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the ISO 14040/14044 method for quantifying a product's environmental impacts — climate, water, resource use, toxicity and more — across its full life from raw-material extraction to end of life. It is the evidence base behind credible product claims, EPDs, ecodesign decisions and anti-greenwashing defence.
Why LCA matters now.
Every 'greener', 'lower-carbon' or 'sustainable' claim now carries regulatory and competitor risk — and buyers, certifiers and regulators respond to one thing: a conformant LCA behind the claim. Most companies making claims do not have one.
What it changes commercially.
A defensible LCA converts marketing risk into commercial advantage: claims that survive scrutiny, eligibility for EPD-gated tenders, ecodesign decisions made on numbers rather than instinct, and a single evidence base that feeds PCF, EPD and customer requests without repeated studies.
The standards we build to.
How the engagement runs.
- 01 — Goal & scopeDefine the question, audience, boundaries and functional unit — the decisions that determine everything.
- 02 — Inventory (LCI)Build the data model across the life cycle with documented sources.
- 03 — Impact assessment (LCIA)Quantify impacts, run sensitivity analysis, isolate hotspots.
- 04 — Review & deployCritical review where required; results turned into claims, EPDs and design decisions.
What you take away.
- ISO 14040/44 LCA studyScreening or full LCA at product or portfolio level, critical-review-ready.
- Life cycle inventoryTransparent, documented data model using recognised databases.
- Impact assessment & interpretationResults across impact categories with hotspot and sensitivity analysis.
- Claim substantiationClaim language engineered to survive regulator and competitor scrutiny.
- Critical review managementPanel or single-expert review managed end to end where required.
What success looks like.
- A decision-grade, review-ready study
- Claims you can defend to regulators and competitors
- A hotspot map that directs design and sourcing
- One evidence base feeding PCF, EPD and customer requests
Industries that use this most.
for a screening LCA; full critical-review studies typically run 4–6 months.
LCA: the questions buyers ask first.
A screening LCA uses secondary data and simplified boundaries to find hotspots and direct decisions — fast and inexpensive. A full ISO 14044 LCA with critical review is required for public comparative claims and EPDs. Most clients start with screening and deepen only where the business case demands.
Screening studies complete in 4–8 weeks. Full critical-review LCAs typically take 4–6 months, with data collection — not modelling — as the bottleneck.
Yes, with discipline. ISO 14044 requires a critical review by a panel for public comparative assertions, and anti-greenwashing rules increasingly require the underlying study to be disclosed. We structure both the LCA and the claim language to survive that review.
Recognised commercial and regional databases (such as ecoinvent) selected per study, documented per dataset. Database choice and assumptions are always disclosed — it is the first thing a reviewer checks.
LCA is the underlying multi-impact method. A PCF is the climate-only subset. An EPD is a third-party-verified, registered disclosure built on an LCA to category rules. The right starting point depends on who is asking — we map the demand before scoping the study.
Let's talk about your business — before we talk about sustainability.
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