Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a structured way of understanding the environmental impacts associated with a product, building, or system across its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to end-of-life.

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Two fundamentally different approaches exist within LCA: attributional and consequential. Attributional LCA describes the environmental impacts of a system as it exists, providing a snapshot of current conditions. Consequential LCA, on the other hand, assesses how decisions change systems over time, capturing market responses and broader system effects.

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I work with both approaches, selecting the methodology based on the question being asked. Attributional LCA is often relevant for reporting, benchmarking, and certification contexts, where consistency and compliance are key. Consequential LCA is more suitable for decision-making and strategy, where understanding the effects of change is critical.

Across more than 200 completed LCAs, primarily within the built environment, I have worked with a wide range of systems, scales, and levels of complexity. This experience informs both the modelling and the interpretation of results, ensuring that assessments are not only technically robust, but also relevant in practice.

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In practice, LCA is not just about calculating results. It involves defining system boundaries, making methodological choices, and interpreting outcomes in a way that supports better decisions. Especially in the built environment, impacts are distributed across materials, energy use, maintenance, and end-of-life scenarios, making a holistic perspective essential.

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When applied correctly, LCA enables a shift from intuition-based decisions to transparent, data-informed strategies, making trade-offs visible and actionable.

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Key points

• Covers both attributional (descriptive) and consequential (decision-oriented) approaches

• Supports reporting, certification, and strategic decision-making

• Takes a full life cycle perspective from extraction to end-of-life

• Requires critical interpretation, not just calculation