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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an internationally recognized methodology (ISO 14040/14044) for quantifying environmental impacts across a product or system’s full life cycle—from raw material extraction through manufacturing, use, and end-of-life. This full-system view enables evidence-based decisions and helps organizations avoid burden shifting when evaluating alternatives such as reusable, single-use, and circular options. Learn more about our methods and tools on the Services page.

ISO 14040 Standard Framework, 4 iterative steps: 1) Define Goals and Scope; 2) Assemble the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI); 3) perform impact assessment calculations; 4) Interpret the data and extract actionable insights

ISO 14040: 2006 Environmenal Management – Life Cycle Assessment – Principles and Framework

Key Terms

ISO 14040 / 14044 — International standards for conducting transparent, comparable Life Cycle Assessments.
Consequential and Attributional LCA — Supports decision-making by modeling different system boundaries and market effects.
Unit-process modeling — Enables precise analysis of complex systems like laboratory workflows or reusable device cycles.

Software Tools

OpenLCA — Open-source LCA modeling software with customizable system boundaries and plug-in databases.
SimaPro — Industry-standard tool for scenario comparison and environmental impact analysis across complex supply chains.
Brightway
GaBi

Data Sources

ecoinvent — Widely used life cycle inventory database providing high-quality emissions and material flow data.
ELCD (European Reference Life Cycle Database) — Structured European datasets for consistent modeling in regulated sectors.

Common Applications

Organizations in healthcare, life sciences, and manufacturing use LCA to:

Compare alternatives: Is a reusable system better than disposables? What about hybrid models?
Quantify impacts: How much greenhouse gas, water, or waste does our product actually generate?
Find opportunities: Where in the supply chain should we focus improvement efforts?
Support claims: What can we say publicly about our environmental performance—and back it up?
Guide procurement: Which suppliers or materials align with our sustainability goals?
Inform design: How do material choices, manufacturing locations, or end-of-life scenarios affect overall impact?

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