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improvement, support for strategic choices, and benchmarking. In fact,
the best description of an LCA (from the Carnegie-Mellon University site
[http://www.eiolca.net/], which provides a free LCA tool) is:

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a way to investigate, estimate, and evaluate
the environmental burdens caused by a material, product, process, or ser-
vice throughout its life span. Environmental burdens include the materials
and energy resources required to create the product, as well as the wastes
and emissions generated during the process. By examining the entire life
cycle, one gets a more complete picture of the environmental impact created
and the trade-offs in impact from one period of the life cycle to another.
Results of LCAs can be useful for identifying areas with high environmen-
tal impact, and for evaluating and improving product designs.

standards For lCa

The key organizations working this area are the Society of Environmental
Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), the United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP), and the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO). SETAC is an academic society that organizes regular conferences on
LCA, particularly on LCA methodology, and it sponsors work groups on
unresolved issues. It provides a forum where researchers and industry rep-
resentatives discuss and exchange ideas on methods development. SETAC
published its Code of Practice in 1993. This described the components of
the traditional LCA, which we discuss later: goal and scope definition,
inventory analysis, impact assessment, and improvement assessment.
Starting around 1996, the ISO started to develop LCA standards. They
published a series of LCA standards between 1997 and 2000.

ISO established that LCA stands for “life cycle assessment” not “analy-
sis,” based on the definition of analysis as a strictly quantitative exer-
cise, while an “assessment” also allows for qualitative information in
the process.

In 2002, UNEP joined forces with SETAC to launch Life Cycle Initiative,
an international partnership. The Life Cycle Initiative’s aims consist in