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policy makers. In addition, there is the prospect of incorporating LCA data or techniques into
the regulatory processes themselves. Previously this has been rather fraught with difficulty
due to the methodological issues of LCA and data needs as discussed throughout this book.
The Dutch experience with building materials and LCA (see Chapter 7) indicates that policy
development should proceed carefully in considering such developments.
However, there are solid grounds for wider use of LCA in informing policy development.
Indeed, building materials provides a further example here, of a sector where future policy in
Australia is now being informed by LCA. This raises the question: what should any new policy
or regulation influenced by LCA studies be expected to achieve? Most critically, the attention
must be focused on preventing the penetration of poorly performing goods and services into
markets at artificially low prices. These low prices are achievable only because the producers
do not pay the full costs of production; they simply pay labour and materials, and the costs
associated with, for example, pollution and human health, remain as ‘externalities’ to be paid
by society as a whole. Even where the producer pays generic taxes, these are invariably uncon-
nected to the externalities, and so it is often in the producer’s interest to maximise external
(environmental) costs in order to reduce internal costs and maximise profit. The problem of
environmental externalities has been long debated, and critiques of neo-classical approaches
indicate clearly that our current economic systems are simply inadequate as a basis for ‘full
costing’ of environmental impacts (e.g. Horne 2001).
Although there has been an active debate in Australia, in which the Productivity Commis-
sion has repeatedly argued that external environmental costs are not sufficient to warrant
intervention to fix market distortions, consumers are only happy, in the main, to pay the ‘full’
cost by buying environmentally benign goods, when they know their peers will not be able to
‘free-ride’ by buying cheaper, poorly performing goods, while everyone suffers the environ-
mental consequences. For example, Zaccaï (2008) suggests that consumers are not convinced
of the importance their contribution could have and continue, mainly, to expect a legislative
setting from public authorities (see Section 12.4). This issue has now become a moral as well as
an economic one, and policy makers will be able to utilise LCA in developing fuller under-
standing of the environmental metrics when contemplating appropriate policies and regula-
tions to address what constitutes a wide range of current market distortions.

12.3 Beyond comparison? A quick guide to LCA development
to 2020
Following on from the trends and likely directions of LCA, we come to the question of limits:
What are the outer boundaries of LCA, and what other questions around environmental
assessment will remain unanswered by application of the technique? What will shape the
direction of LCA over the next decade and what should users and practitioners be aware of?
Eight key points are made here as a quick guide.
There is a need for wider LCA awareness, so that neither LCA practitioners nor lay recipi-
ents of LCA information are tempted to view LCA results as definitive or absolute. This creates
a heady and potentially dangerous mix, as LCA results may often appear profound (especially
to the lay person who has little other information to go on), and the temptation is often to
apply a single LCA result well beyond its intended or appropriate limits. Add to this the other
temptation of commercial organisations to seek the ‘right’ answers for their products’ environ-
mental performance by tweaking LCA methods and results, and it is unsurprising that LCA is
sometimes viewed as controversial. Nevertheless, given the choice between acceleration of the
breadth of application of LCA and a ‘new repression’ through risk reduction and control of
applications, we favour more adventure in LCA and environmental assessment rather than

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