1. Getting started with life cycle assessment

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a quantified environmental evaluation methodology. Based on an inventory of all data relating to the life cycle of a product (good, service or process), LCA enables the calculation of an environmental balance sheet based on a number of impact categories, such as global warming, ozone layer depletion or depletion of fossil and mineral resources. From an application point of view, LCA relies on dedicated software. LCA terminology therefore applies both to the methodology itself, and to the associated software tools.

From a practical point of view, an LCA comprises four distinct phases:

• Definition of study objectives and scope.

•