Life Cycle Assessment
- A life cycle assessment or LCA is a technique used to assess the environmental impact associated with all the stages in the life cycle of a product, a service or an event
- This could be something like a personal computer, a car, or a wedding
- An LCA will consider activities such as the extraction of a raw material, how a product is manufactured and distributed and finally how it is disposed of at the end of its useful life
- This is sometimes referred to as cradle-to grave or more recently as cradle-to-cradle analysis as recycling of materials becomes a normal part of sustainable practices
- This is not an easy task as there are so many different factors to consider – for example, you would have to count the emissions released as a result of sourcing all the parts of the final production version of a PC
- One way to quantify emissions is in terms of a carbon footprint, that is, the total amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted over the full life cycle of a product, service or event
- Obtaining precise measurements of a carbon footprint is challenging, but the act of assessment raises awareness of climate change impacts and encourages individuals and policymakers to look for alternatives or ways of reducing carbon footprints