The increased awareness of the importance of environmental protection, and the possible impacts associated with products, both manufactured and consumed, has increased interest in the development of methods to better understand and address these impacts. One of the techniques being developed for this purpose is life cycle assessment (LCA).
LCA can assist in
• identifying opportunities to improve the environmental performance of products at various points in their life cycle,
• informing decision-makers in industry, government or non-government organizations (e.g. for the purpose of strategic planning, priority setting, product or process design or redesign),
• the selection of relevant indicators of environmental performance, including measurement techniques, and
• marketing (e.g. implementing an ecolabelling scheme, making an environmental claim, or producing an environmental product declaration).
For practitioners of LCA, ISO 14044 details the requirements for conducting an LCA.
LCA addresses the environmental aspects and potential environmental impacts (e.g. use of resources and the environmental consequences of releases) throughout a product’s life cycle from raw material acquisition through production, use, end-of-life treatment, recycling and final disposal (i.e. cradle-to-grave).
There are four phases in an LCA study:
• the goal and scope definition phase,
• the inventory analysis phase,
• the impact assessment phase, and
• the interpretation phase.
The scope, including the system boundary and level of detail, of an LCA depends on the subject and the intended use of the study. The depth and the breadth of LCA can differ considerably depending on the goal of a particular LCA.
The life cycle inventory analysis phase (LCI phase) is the second phase of LCA. It is an inventory of input/output data with regard to the system being studied. It involves collection of the data necessary to meet the goals of the defined study.
The life cycle impact assessment phase (LCIA) is the third phase of the LCA. The purpose of LCIA is to provide additional information to help assess a product system’s LCI results so as to better understand their environmental significance.
Life cycle interpretation is the final phase of the LCA procedure, in which the results of an LCI or an LCIA, or both, are summarized and discussed as a basis for conclusions, recommendations and decision-making in accordance with the goal and scope definition.
There are cases where the goal of an LCA can be satisfied by performing only an inventory analysis and an interpretation. This is usually referred to as an LCI study.
This International Standard covers two types of studies: life cycle assessment studies (LCA studies) and life cycle inventory studies (LCI studies). LCI studies are similar to LCA studies but exclude the LCIA phase. LCI studies are not to be confused with the LCI phase of an LCA study.
Generally, the information developed in an LCA or LCI study can be used as part of a much more comprehensive decision process. Comparing the results of different LCA or LCI studies is only possible if the assumptions and context of each study are equivalent. Therefore, this International Standard contains several requirements and recommendations to ensure transparency on these issues.