Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a technique used to assess the environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle from material sourcing through end of life. There are four main phases of LCA: 1) defining the goal and scope of the study, 2) conducting a life cycle inventory analysis, 3) assessing the potential environmental impacts, and 4) interpreting the results. LCA can be conducted at various levels from cradle-to-grave, cradle-to-gate, or gate-to-gate. The interpretation phase involves identifying significant issues from the results, evaluating the completeness of the study, and providing conclusions and recommendations.

1. Approaches of Life Cycle
Assessment
NISHANT RAJ KAPOOR

2. What is LCA?
LCA stands for Life Cycle Assessment.
Life-cycle assessment is a technique to assess
environmental impacts associated with all the stages of
a product's life from raw material extraction through
materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use,
repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling.
Designers use this process to help critique their
products.

3. What LCA aims at?
LCA aims to understand the flows of matter and
energy involved in the product, material, manufacturing
process, packaging, etc. and find out what are the
environmentally critical points, and prevent or remove
them using other materials or systems.
This information is used to improve processes, support
policy and provide a sound basis for informed decision.

4. Types of LCA
There are two main types of LCA.
1.) Attributional LCA
2.) Consequential LCA
Social LCA is under development as a different
approach to life cycle thinking intended to assess social
implications or potential impacts. Social LCA should
be considered as an approach that is complementary to
environmental LCA.

5. Types of LCA
Attributional LCA seek to establish (or attribute) the
burdens associated with the production and use of a
product, or with a specific service or process, at a point
in time (typically the recent past).
Consequential LCA seek to identify the environmental
consequences of a decision or a proposed change in a
system under study (oriented to the future), which
means that market and economic implications of a
decision may have to be taken into account.

6. VARIANTS OF LCA
Cradle-to-Grave
Cradle-to-Gate
Cradle-to-Cradle
Gate-to-Gate
Well-to-Wheel
Ecology-based

7. CRADLE-TO-GRAVE
Cradle-to-grave is the full Life Cycle Assessment from
resource extraction ('cradle') to use phase and disposal
phase ('grave').

8. CRADLE-TO-GATE
Cradle-to-gate is an assessment of a partial product life
cycle from resource extraction (cradle) to the factory
gate (i.e., before it is transported to the consumer)

9. CRADLE-TO-CRADLE
Cradle-to-cradle is a specific kind of cradle-to-grave
assessment, where the end-of-life disposal step for the
product is a recycling process. It is a method used to
minimize the environmental impact of products by
employing sustainable production, operation, and
disposal practices and aims to incorporate social
responsibility into product development.

10. GATE-TO-GATE
Gate-to-gate is a partial LCA looking at only
one value-added process in the entire
production chain.

11. WELL-TO-WHEEL
Well-to-wheel is the specific LCA used for transport
fuels and vehicles. The first stage, which incorporates the
feedstock or fuel production and processing and fuel
delivery or energy transmission, and is called the
"upstream" stage, while the stage that deals with vehicle
operation itself is sometimes called the "downstream"
stage.

12. ECOLOGY-BASED
Eco-LCA is a methodology that quantitatively takes
into account regulating and supporting services during
the life cycle of economic goods and products.
It was designed to provide a guide to wise
management of human activities by understanding the
direct and indirect impacts on ecological resources
and surrounding ecosystems.

13. Processes involved in LCA

14. PHASES OF LCA STUDY

15. Phases of LCA study
a) Phase of goal and scope definition
b) Phase of inventory analysis
c) Phase of impact assessment
d) Phase of interpretation

16. Phase of goal and scope definition
This is a key step and the ISO standards require that
the goal and scope of an LCA be clearly defined and
consistent with the intended application.

17. Steps involved in goal and scope
definition:
• Product system to study
• The functions of the product system
• The functional unit
• The system limits
• Assumptions
• Limitations
• Data Requirements

18. Phase of inventory analysis
‘Inventory’ literally means listing of products.
Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) analysis involves
creating an inventory of flows from and to nature
for a product system. Inventory flows include
inputs of water, energy, and raw materials, and
releases to air, land, and water. It also involves
data collection and quantification of needed
input/output data.

19. Phase of impact assessment
Understand and assess the magnitude and importance
of potential environmental impacts.
Environmental impact is an alteration of the initial
characteristics of the environment caused by a project,
work or activity. It is the set of consequences for
human health, welfareof the flora and fauna and the
future availability of natural resources attributable to
the input or output streams of a system.

20. Steps involved
This process comprises of the following procedures:
• selection of impact categories, category indicators,
and characterization models;
• the classification stage, where the inventory
parameters are sorted and assigned to specific
impact categories; and
• impact measurement, where the categorized LCI
flows are characterized, using one of many possible
LCIA methodologies, into common equivalence
units that are then summed to provide an overall
impact category total.

21. Phase of interpretation
• Life Cycle Interpretation is a systematic
technique to identify, quantify, check, and
evaluate information from the results of the life
cycle inventory and/or the life cycle impact
assessment.
• The results from the inventory analysis and
impact assessment are summarized during the
interpretation phase. The outcome of the
interpretation phase is a set of conclusions and
recommendations for the study.

22. Interpreting ‘INTERPRETATION’
According to ISO 14040:2006, the interpretation
should include:
• identification of significant issues based on the
results of the LCI and LCIA phases of an LCA;
• evaluation of the study considering
completeness, sensitivity and consistency
checks; and
• conclusions, limitations and recommendations.

23. Conclusion
There is a growing attention for sustainability in
the construction sector. Current frameworks are
developed to facilitate the implementation of the
assessment of environmental performances.
Despite some limitations of the LCA technique,
it is still a powerful and science based tool to
evaluate the environmental impacts.

24. Thank You