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How to Write a Life Cycle Assessment: Expert Tips & Free Template

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How to Do a Life Cycle Assessment: Free Template | Cruz Foam

How to Write a Life Cycle Assessment: Expert Tips & Free Template

As more and more companies look to enhance their sustainability efforts, life cycle assessments (LCAs) become necessary to gauge the environmental impact of products and services. LCAs track products and processes from creation to disposal and help your company compare its sustainability goals and efforts with measured results.

So, what is a product life cycle? The life cycle begins with acquiring natural resources to make the product. Then it follows the production and use stages of a product, and finally, it ends with waste management (including disposal and recycling).

Accounting for energy, emissions, and human health impacts along a product’s life cycle is necessary to quantify a product’s true emissions potential. It’s also a key tool

for eco-design and planning, which aims to create more environmentally efficient products and processes. In this way, LCAs not only improve businesses’ internal processes and identify problem areas, but they support sustainable innovations in product design and inform policy changes across industries.

There are many considerations when figuring out how to write an LCA, from choosing the type of life cycle assessment, to properly following the assessment stages, to measuring and applying the results. But by following best practices and taking advantage of tools like a life cycle assessment template, you can ensure your LCA is thorough, data-driven, and supports a sustainable future.

What Are the Different Types of Life Cycle Assessments?

Choosing the right type of life cycle assessment is important for accurately evaluating a product’s environmental impact. Each type offers a unique perspective, depending on which stages of the product’s life cycle you want to analyze.

Your choice should align with your goals, resources, and the questions you want to answer. By understanding these types, you can select the most effective assessment to guide your sustainability efforts.

Cradle-to-Grave

This is the most comprehensive type of LCA, covering every stage of a product’s life, from raw material extraction (the cradle) to its disposal (the grave). It examines:

  • Raw Material Extraction: Harvesting or mining materials needed for production
  • Manufacturing & Processing: Turning raw materials into finished products
  • Transportation: Delivering products to retailers or end users
  • Usage & Retail: How the product is used during its lifetime. Some products like electronics will have emissions associated with usage and retail, while others like packaging or clothing will have little to no emissions during this stage
  • Waste Disposal: The end-of-life stage, such as landfill, incineration, or recycling

Cradle-to-grave assessments are ideal for companies who want to understand and minimize the total environmental footprint of the product.

Cradle-to-Gate

This type of LCA focuses on everything until the product leaves the factory or production site. It excludes what happens after the product is shipped to customers, such as its use and disposal.

This type of assessment reduces complexity by narrowing the analysis to processes under the company’s direct control, like material sourcing and manufacturing.

For companies looking for quick insights into production impacts or certifying environmental product declarations (EPDs), this is a simpler assessment. However, modern standards increasingly emphasize cradle-to-grave assessments for a more complete impact picture.

Gate-to-Gate

Gate-to-gate LCAs look at only one specific stage or process within the product’s life cycle. This type isolates a single value-added step, such as assembly or packaging, which allows for detailed analysis of specific production processes without being overwhelmed by the complexity of a full LCA.

The gate-to-gate assessment is particularly useful for products with many production stages, where focusing on individual processes provides actionable insights. Gate-to-gate assessments can later be linked together to form a full cradle-to-grave analysis.

Cradle-to-Cradle

Cradle-to-cradle takes a different approach, aiming to eliminate waste entirely by designing products that can be reused or recycled indefinitely. Instead of ending in disposal, products are reintegrated into production cycles.

This supports the circular economy by “closing the loop” through recycling or upcycling. It’s no surprise then that companies focused on sustainable design or achieving zero waste goals might opt for this assessment. 

This approach aligns with growing consumer and regulatory demand for sustainable, long-lasting products and systems.

Key Stages of the Life Cycle Assessment

An LCA lays the groundwork for your company’s sustainability strategy. You can only make decisions on things you’ve measured, and an LCA provides the baseline for making informed improvements.

Packaging is pivotal in sustainability strategies because it often represents a significant portion of a product’s environmental footprint. For companies looking to align with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals, understanding the environmental impact of packaging is foundational.

Knowing the energy consumption, waste generation, and carbon emissions associated with packaging helps companies identify opportunities to reduce material use, switch to renewable materials, or improve recyclability.

Outline Your Goals and Scope

This first step will help you define the boundaries, focus, and objectives of your analysis. The goal of an LCA, ultimately, is to facilitate decisions. That’s why you should always start with a specific goal in mind.

Examples can include optimizing a specific process or pinpointing stages in the product life cycle (e.g., raw material sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, or end-of-life) that contribute the most to environmental impacts. 

Then, set boundaries for your analysis. Ask yourself, which life cycle stages will you include in the assessment and why? Will you cover the full lifecycle (cradle-to-grave) or even multiple life cycles (which may be required when analyzing reuse or recycle)?

Inventory Analysis or Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)

The Life Cycle Inventory Analysis (LCI) is essentially the data collection phase of your LCA. At this point, you’ll collect data on energy, materials, water, waste, and any other inputs or outputs across each lifecycle stage, measuring everything that flows in and out of the system.

So, what are the inputs and outputs you should measure?

  • The raw materials and resources and the amounts needed for production
  • The energy required, as well as waste and emissions generated during manufacturing
  • The packaging materials used to transport the product and its components
  • The emissions produced by the transport vehicles delivering the product
  • The electricity consumption throughout the product’s lifetime (such as with electronics)
  • The strategies for disposal or repurposing at the end of the product’s usable life
  • Any other inputs or outputs of your specific product

Impact Assessment

Begin by selecting environmental impact categories that matter most to your business and stakeholders. There are many impact categories to choose from but some of the most common include:

  • Global warming potential (GWP): Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions
  • Eutrophication: Nutrient runoff that impacts water ecosystems
  • Ozone depletion: Chemicals contributing to the breakdown of the ozone layer
  • Water use: Total water consumption and water scarcity impact
  • Resource depletion: Use of finite resources like fossil fuels or rare earth elements

Avoid the common pitfall of focusing on a single metric, like carbon emissions, as this can lead to oversimplification or greenwashing. A holistic view ensures you address trade-offs and unintended consequences, such as reducing carbon at the expense of water use or toxicity. Take plastics for example. They can be very lightweight which may contribute to a lower carbon emission potential, but that doesn’t take into account the tradeoffs with their pollution potential, biodiversity impacts, and microplastic impacts. Choosing comprehensive categories provides a nuanced understanding of your product’s environmental impact.

Interpretation

In this stage. you’ll analyze your results, determining which ingredients, manufacturing practices, or other portions of the product life cycle contribute the most to your product’s overall impact.

You’ll also uncover actionable insights to drive product improvements or operational choices. For example, using renewable energy or prioritizing reuse are ways to make your product’s life cycle more sustainable.

Reporting and Communication

Your findings should be presented in a transparent, concise, and accessible report. Include the following key elements:

  1. Methodology: Clearly outline your goals, scope, data sources, and assumptions, along with the software or tools used.
  2. Results: Summarize data in tables, graphs, or charts to make the information visually digestible. This portion can also include scenario analyses that help broaden understanding of the EPF. Remember, your only job is to communicate the findings effectively. Accurate data should not be construed positively or negatively, only as factual.
  3. Limitations: Be upfront about data gaps, assumptions, and areas needing further analysis to avoid greenwashing or misleading claims.
  4. Actionable Insights: Highlight opportunities for improvement that align with your sustainability or operational goals.

Tailor your communication style to your audience, whether they are internal teams, external stakeholders, or customers. Use plain language and visuals to ensure your findings resonate and drive meaningful action.

Tips for Conducting a Thorough Life Cycle Assessment to Support Your Sustainability Strategy

Best practices can guide you on how to write an LCA that is accurate and reliable. From collecting the right data to using the right tools, you can create an LCA that highlights areas of opportunity and ensures you make the right decisions.

Plan Your Data Collection Strategy

Start by mapping out each stage of your product’s life cycle and identifying the data you need. Use tools like process flow diagrams to visualize energy and material flows. Prioritize primary data (direct measurements from your production processes) whenever possible. For stages where primary data isn’t available, rely on reputable secondary sources and document these meticulously.

Pro tip: Time-stamp your data to ensure it reflects current operations, as older data may lead to inaccurate conclusions.

Use Sensitivity Analysis to Identify Issues

Sensitivity analysis (SA) is a method of testing how the LCA results change when you vary one or more parameters or assumptions. This analysis helps you understand how changes in certain inputs affect the overall results. The SA can point out the reliability, validity, and uncertainty of your LCA results and reveal the most influential factors that affect the environmental performance of your product or service. Sensitivity analyses are a great way to explore areas where you may have limited data or used secondary data. 

For example:

  • What happens to your product’s carbon footprint when switching to a renewable energy supplier?
  • How does altering packaging material (e.g., from plastic to compostable materials) change your waste impacts?
  • How does increasing or decreasing the distance from manufacturing to end consumers affect your transportation emissions?

This practice highlights potential improvements and reveals areas where data quality or assumptions need refinement.

Leverage LCA Software

Given the complexity of LCAs, software tools simplify the process by automating calculations and providing access to robust datasets. These tools can give you a life cycle assessment example and allow scenario modeling so that you can compare different production methods or material choices.

Software isn’t just a convenience—it keeps your analysis consistent and can save a lot of time, particularly for companies conducting LCAs across multiple products.

Ensure Data Accuracy

Accurate data is core to a reliable LCA. Without high-quality inputs, your assessment results can be misleading, potentially resulting in poor decisions or greenwashing accusations. To ensure your data is accurate and relevant, prioritize primary data whenever possible. Primary data is raw information collected directly from the source, such as your suppliers, production facilities, or distributors. Primary data provides specific and reliable insights tailored to your product or process, making it the gold standard for LCAs.

When primary data is unavailable, secondary data is an acceptable alternative. Sources like government repositories, industry databases, or peer-reviewed academic studies can fill in the gaps. However, you should ensure that secondary data is up-to-date, regionally appropriate, and relevant to the specific materials, processes, or geographies you’re assessing. Using outdated or generic data can reduce the credibility and accuracy of your findings.

“LCAs are only as good as the data they use,” says John Felts, CEO and co-founder of Cruz Foam. “Limited data or inappropriate data-set substitutions across product life cycle stages can impact LCA results or lead to errors or distortions. Preexisting perceptions, use of certain terminology, or hard-to-decipher scientific data can also create audience misunderstandings of LCAs. I recommend presenting information in LCAs using clear language and visuals to avoid its readers experiencing these issues. Also, using clear and readily accessible data sources is crucial.”

Engage Stakeholders

Involve key stakeholders early in the LCA process to get insights and secure buy-in. Stakeholders might include:

  • Internal teams (e.g., R&D, supply chain, marketing): Their input ensures the analysis aligns with strategic priorities.
  • Suppliers: Collaborate to gather accurate data on raw materials or processes.
  • Customers and investors: Use LCAs to demonstrate your commitment to sustainability and address ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) expectations.

Stakeholder engagement fosters transparency and builds trust, making your sustainability efforts more credible and impactful.

Regularly Update Your LCAs

Sustainability is a moving target. As processes, materials, or technologies evolve, LCAs can become outdated. Conduct follow-up assessments to account for changes in production processes, supply chains, regulatory requirements, etc. Make periodic reassessments a part of your sustainability strategy. For example, if a new, eco-friendly material becomes available, update your LCA to evaluate its potential benefits. Or monitor changes in your supply chain, such as new transportation routes or suppliers, and update your analysis accordingly.

Frequent updates mean your LCA will remain an accurate reflection of your product’s life cycle, and they’ll help you stay ahead in meeting sustainability goals.

Start Your LCA on the Right Foot with This Template

Conducting a thorough LCA requires expertise, specialized tools, and time. Small and medium-sized businesses often lack the resources or trained personnel to perform comprehensive analyses.

However, an LCA template standardizes the process, guiding you through each step, from goal-setting to reporting. It eliminates guesswork, ensuring consistency in how data is collected, analyzed, and interpreted. Templates make organizing and prioritizing data sources easier and make an LCA accessible to non-technical stakeholders.

Cruz Foam’s free LCA template simplifies the process of how to write an LCA with a guideline for each stage, ensuring you conduct a thorough assessment that meets your needs. This template breaks the process into manageable steps, enabling your business to assess its products without significant investment in expertise or resources.

Tag Cruz Foam or share your LCA after use.

The Power of LCAs: Data-Driven Decision-Making for Greater Impact

LCAs are strategic assets, helping companies demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and facilitating eco-driven decision-making. By integrating LCAs into your strategy, you can turn sustainability goals into measurable, impactful results.

LCAs empower companies to make informed decisions that benefit both the environment and their bottom line. “Businesses that embrace LCAs will have a clear competitive advantage as the marketplace moves increasingly toward more efficient energy usage and more sustainable material usage throughout their supply chains,” says Felts.

Whether you’re optimizing internal processes, reducing your environmental footprint, or innovating with eco-design principles, an LCA provides the roadmap for sustainable growth.
Cruz Foam exemplifies this philosophy with sustainable packaging solutions that have undergone rigorous LCAs. Backed by science, our ASTM-tested compostable foam packaging is the ideal alternative to conventional and unsustainable foams in product shipping. Using a proprietary method that upcycles natural materials into high-performance, compostable foam, Cruz Foam is developing breakthrough products to transform the packaging industry.

Cruz Foam aims to make sustainability accessible to companies of all types and sizes.

Ready to take the next step in your sustainability journey? Explore Cruz Foam’s blog for more expert insights.

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