What does LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) mean?
LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) assesses a product's environmental impacts across its life cycle.
ISO 14040 describes principles and framework, while ISO 14044 specifies requirements and guidelines. An LCA has four phases: goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation. Functional unit, system boundaries, allocation and data quality determine whether results are defensibly comparable.
Why does it matter for DPP and compliance?
ESPR and product-specific delegated acts can require carbon or environmental footprint data across the product life cycle and expose it through the DPP. LCA can provide the methodological basis for PEF or EPD values, but it is not automatically mandatory for every product passport.
What should teams prepare?
Teams should store LCA results with method, standard version, functional or declared unit, system boundary, inventory data, emission factors, allocation rules, impact categories and verification. The DPP should not only show the final value but make its origin traceable.
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