Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides valuable information about the environmental impacts of your products, services, or systems throughout their lifecycle. This information can be utilized in various ways to enhance your business operations, including research and development, as background material for securing funding, differentiating from competitors, and in communication and marketing efforts. Our skilled expert team, experienced in life cycle assessments across various industries, focuses on quality, reliability, and transparency, enabling you to genuinely increase your understanding of your environmental impacts.

We conduct Life Cycle Assessments for various purposes

At Etteplan, we deliver high-quality Life Cycle Assessments for various essential purposes:

Internal purposes: We provide lighter Life Cycle Assessments (screening-level assessments) that are particularly beneficial for internal R&D projects, procurement decisions, and comparing products and technologies during pilot or design phases.
Funding Applications: We conduct LCAs that adhere strictly to the calculation rules specified in your funding applications.
Public Stakeholder Communication: We produce assessments suitable for public stakeholder communication, providing credible, reliable, and verified information on the environmental impacts of your products. We also assist you with communication of the LCA results.

Our LCA team possesses extensive experience in various LCA-based studies across different industries. We have carried out hundreds of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Type II Environmental Product Declarations (self-declarations), as well as numerous other LCA studies for a wide range of products. We serve clients from diverse sectors, including plastics, chemicals, energy production, recycling, construction, power electronics, and the wood, paper, and pulp industries.

Our LCA-based services

Product and Production Plant Life Cycle Assessments

Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments always evaluate multiple environmental impacts, covering essential lifecycle stages. The environmental impacts assessed may include, in addition to climate impacts, water footprints, resource depletion, acidification, eutrophication, as well as many other environmental impact categories.

Environmental Product Declarations (EPD)

An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardized document that comprehensively outlines the environmental impacts of a product over its lifecycle. EPDs are utilized for both business-to-business and consumer communications. An EPD is always based on a life cycle assessment.

Verification of LCA and Carbon Footprint Assessments: Critical Evaluations and Verifications

Our senior experts also serve as verifiers for LCA assessments prepared by clients or conducted by other consultants. Critical review ensures that the LCA study is made in accordance with LCA standards and product category rules (PCRs). Critical reviews are always conducted according to ISO/TS 14071 as well as ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 requirements. Furthermore, we conduct verifications for EPD documents published by EPD Norway.

LCA Models Tailored to Your Needs

In connection with LCA and EPD projects or as a completely separate assignment, we also provide development of LCA models for clients. We utilize both Sphera LCA for Experts (formerly Gabi) and SimaPro software. In addition to delivering models, we train you on the respective software and the use of the developed models.

Strong expertise in standards and calculation guidelines

We conduct LCA projects taking into account the industry in question and following the generally accepted standards and calculation rules for life cycle assessments, such as ISO 14040, 14044, and 14067, unless otherwise agreed. Additionally, our team has experience with life cycle assessments in compliance with EU-level funding applications (e.g., EU Innovation Fund) and EU taxonomy requirements.

In the preparation of EPDs, we follow applicable Product Category Rules (PCR), ISO and EN standards for EPD development, and the general guidelines from the selected EPD program operator.

The scope or purpose of the assessment may also guide lighter reviews or implementations based on other calculation rules or guidelines. We always execute assessments at an appropriate level without compromising on quality and accuracy.

Life Cycle Assessment stages:

Project definition

Together, we discuss the content and scope of the study, considering the goals and intended use.

Project initiation

In the kick-off meeting, we agree on project’s terms, timelines, and methods of operation.

Data collection

We prepare data collection forms for you to fill out and, if necessary, gather information from other supply chain actors. We guide and advise you on purpose-driven and sufficiently precise data collection.

Calculation, modeling, and reporting

We use reliable and market-leading life cycle assessment softwares and high-quality databases for calculations and modeling.

Internal quality assurance

Quality assurance of results, models, and reports, including benchmarking results, is an essential part of our projects.

Presentation of results and next steps

We present results transparently and comprehensively, providing recommendations for reducing environmental impacts.

Your partner in reliable LCA studies

We adhere to a well-honed and proven framework developed over decades to guide projects to completion. We provide not just numerical results, but also valuable insights to support your decision-making and build sustainable solutions. We assist you at every stage of the project, enabling smooth and flexible collaboration while minimizing your resource needs.

We always work client-oriented, focusing on what matters and sticking to the facts. We openly discuss results, calculations, and methods while providing context, ensuring you maximize the benefits of the assessment and deepen your understanding of your environmental impacts.

Alongside our LCA services, we also offer sustainability reporting, emission reduction action planning, and organizational carbon footprint calculations.