Consistent standards for life cycle assessment

Purpose and goal:

The project aims to build knowledge and common insights on standards related to life cycle assessment (LCA). We focus on identifying ambiguities in these standards and conflicts between them. We also make recommendations for improvements in the structure and content of the standards, and engage to see these recommendations implemented within ISO and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol.

Expected results and effects:

Our findings will be useful in the near-term international processes of 1) harmonising the content of LCA-related ISO standards and 2) revising ISO and GHG Protocol documents. The revised standards will over time influence other standards when they are due for revision. Our findings will also help the industry interpret and apply the various standards. This will all contribute to making LCA and carbon footprint more effective and efficient tools for the improvement of products and processes.

Approach and implementation:

We will 1) interview Swedish stakeholders and compile their experience from diverging and/or unclear standards, 2 ) analyse relevant ISO and GHG Protocol documents to identify points of divergence in methodology between them, 3) conduct case studies to investigate and illustrate the importance of the methodological choices, 4) discuss the results and give recommendations, 5) feed these recommendations into the standardisation processes, and

6) disseminate our findings to a broader audience.