Unveiling LCA's Iterative Essence: A Practical Perspective

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies the environmental impact of a product across a product’s life stages. It achieves this by assessing the supply chain and manufacturing process regarding energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and resource depletion. The integrity of this process is dependent on the quality of primary and secondary data.  

At Monk Spaces, LCAs are conducted for various industries and scales. While these assessments don’t inherently require iterations, refining data improves the model’s reliability, ensuring the environmental impact’s accuracy. Iterative cycles incorporate updated data and methodologies, enhancing assessment robustness. Stakeholder feedback integration through iterations supports informed decision-making and sustainable practices.

For our LCA practitioners, utilising version tracking systems is critical in this iterative journey. Our practitioners use these version trackers to meticulously document all revisions. These systems enable us to maintain a transparent and organised revisions record, ensuring our findings’ integrity and reliability. They also make it easy to identify key contributors and simplify sensitivity studies.

Our version trackers have recently shown iterative studies causing increases and decreases in environmental impacts.

• Our recent LCA study with Company A observed a significant shift in their product’s carbon footprint from 358 to 929 kgCO₂e (2.5 times increase). This was primarily due to the expansion of the product system, which made the system assessment more comprehensive.
• When collaborating with company B, results changed from 867 to 761 kgCO₂e (12% reduction) for one product. Another product changed from 522 to 157 kgCO₂e (70% reduction). Changes were due to inaccuracies in the raw material composition and energy mix. Variations in production processes, cutoff rules, and energy sources also influenced the outcomes.

The iterative nature of LCA isn’t just about accuracy; it embodies a continuous pursuit of sustainability excellence. By refining our methods, we ensure the results we deliver lead to informed decisions with lasting positive impact. This commitment to collaboration, innovation, and rigorous analysis positions LCA as a powerful tool to propel us towards a more sustainable future.