Understanding Impact – How Life Cycle Assessments support sustainable practice

Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) have become a key tool for businesses wanting to embed sustainability throughout their value chain. They provide invaluable insight into the environmental impacts your product or service has throughout its life. By scrutinising the entire journey from the sourcing of materials to end of use disposal, the assessment highlight areas for improvement and helps businesses meet their sustainability objective.

At Wylde Connections our team of expert consultants work with businesses to prove and demonstrate their sustainability credentials. Understanding impacts is a fundamental part of the process as we help clients take a deep dive into their operations to understand the implications for people and planet. As part of Wylde’s commitment to continual improvement, our colleague Callum John PIEMA recently completed his ISO 14044 Life Cycle Assessment Certificate of Achievement, allowing us to further build our service offer.

What is an LCA and what does it mean for business?

Businesses need to understand impacts before they can draw up a plan to address them. An LCA is an important tool for those on their sustainability journey as it provides a systematic evaluation of the environmental impacts associated with all life stages of a product or service. They provide the insight needed to make more responsible decisions, be that around design, materials procurement or recyclability.

An LCA can help demonstrate a company’s sustainability credentials and prove a vital ingredient in securing contracts. Tenders are now far more demanding in the information they request about environmental impact and having the data to back up claims can go a long way to securing competitive advantage.

These assessments also help build more sustainable supply chains. Many businesses are now looking beyond their own operations to drive best practice across their value chain. Responsible procurement has a key role to play in that transition. By prioritising suppliers with LCAs, decision makers can gain far greater insight into lifecycle impacts and select partners that are best aligned with their vision and values.

How is an LCA conducted?

There are 5 key stages:

1. Scoping

It is important to start with setting your scope. There are many phases you might want to incorporate ranging from raw material extraction, through to manufacturing and processing, transportation, use and end of life. By following the cradle-to-grave model, you can use an LCA to evaluate environmental impact from material extraction to final disposal. For a less comprehensive approach you could purely focus on the manufacturing process or follow a cradle-to-gate model, ending at the point the product leaves your own facility.

The importance of resource efficiency in embedding sustainable practice is leading many businesses to adopt practices that support the circular economy. This challenges the traditional take – make – discard model. Instead, it seeks to design out waste and maintain resources within the production cycle for as long as possible. This involves strategies such as recycling, reusing, and repurposing materials to minimise resource consumption and environmental impact, while also fostering innovation in product design to extend product life.

 2. Data

The next step involves the gathering of inventory data. Identify the key processes within the lifecycle that you will focus. For each of these collect data on the resources consumed and the outputs produced. This incorporates a range of things including energy, water, raw materials, emissions and waste. The information can be gathered from a range of primary and secondary sources. The data is then organised systematically, normally using an LCA software platform, so that it is aligned with boundaries set during the scoping phase.

3. Evaluate

It is now time to convert the raw inventory data into quantifiable environmental impacts. This is achieved by classifying each input and output into relevant impact categories such as global warming, acidification, and resource depletion. These impacts can then be characterised using conversion factors to yield comparable metrics like CO₂ equivalents. These insights provide a robust basis for recommending improvements that can reduce the overall environmental footprint of a product or process.

 4. Interpret

Now analyse and evaluate the data from both the data inventory and impact assessment to draw meaningful conclusions. This focuses on identifying environmental hotspots, assessing uncertainties, and determining the significance of the impacts relative to the defined goals and scope. Your business will then be able to pinpoint key areas for improvement, set targets and identify appropriate interventions. The LCA then comes into its own in helping guide your sustainability strategy and action plan.

5. Report

It is important that you now clearly report and communicate your insights with key stakeholders. Present the LCA in a comprehensive report that details the methodologies, data sources, assumptions, and findings. Take the opportunity to seek a critical review by independent experts and act on their recommendations as part of a commitment to continual improvement. The final report not only serves as a basis for informed decision-making but also enhances the credibility of the assessment, providing clear guidance for future interventions.

Specialist support

Conducting an LCA is inherently complex and can be challenging for businesses who do not have appropriate in-house expertise. As your trusted partner, Wylde can support you every step of the way and help integrate LCAs into a robust sustainability strategy.

Our consultants are experienced in taking deep dives into data, evaluating impacts and identifying hotspots. This scrutiny already forms a key part of our 5-step model of ASSESS, DEVELOP, IMPLEMENT, ENGAGE and TRANSFORM and LCAs are a valuable addition to our ecosystem of solutions.

Talk to our team today about how we can support your sustainability journey. Book a Discovery Call or find out more at www.wyldeconnections.co.uk