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This initiative will allow laying the foundations for LCA methodology to be
used in a practical manner by all product and service sectors around the globe.
Although this methodology is currently beginning to consolidate, the application
patterns of the technique to practitioners is still very much in debate. In the past
years, however, there has been a growing confidence in the LCA community that
the emerging tool has a real future in the Life Cycle Management (LCM) toolbox
(Saur et al., 2003).

2.1.3 COMMON USES OF LIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENT

In a first approach, the uses of LCA can be classified as general and particular:

General:
• Compare alternative choices.
• Identify points for environmental enhancement.
• Count on a more global perspective of environmental issues, to avoid
problem shifting.
• Contribute to the understanding of the environmental consequences of
human activities.
• Establish a picture of the interactions between a product or activity
and the environment as quickly as possible.
• Provide support information so that decision-makers can identify
opportunities for environmental improvements.
Particular:
• Define the environmental performance of a product during its entire
life-cycle.
• Identify the most relevant steps in the manufacturing process related
to a given environmental impact.
• Compare the environmental performance of a product with that of other
concurrent products or with others giving a similar service.

The use of LCA allows defining the environmental profile of a product throughout
its life-cycle. Thus, the consumption of natural resources or releases into air, water
and soil can be identified, quantified and expressed in terms of impacts on the
environment. LCA does not necessarily need to be applied to the entire life-cycle of
a product. In many cases, this kind of evaluation is applied to a single process such
as a car assembly or to a service such as raw material transportation. Depending on
the context, LCA is useful as a conceptual framework or as a set of practical tools.
“Life-cycle thinking” can stimulate creativity and ability to see the extensive dimen-
sions of a problem. In terms of strategic management, a business can find important
product improvements, new approaches to process optimization and, in some cases,
radically new ways of meeting the same need (only with a new product or a service)
while carrying out an LCA. In this context, LCA can be seen as a support tool in
decision-making processes. In addition, life-cycle management (LCM), one of the

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