As more brands incorporate sustainable materials into their products, consumers are also demanding more transparency and clarity on the new material innovations available on the market. It can be difficult for brands to accurately quantify the benefits of these different materials. Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) have emerged as one of the few tools that provide a structured method for measuring a material’s impact. By assessing environmental factors across the lifespan of a product, LCAs can help companies make more informed sustainability decisions.
However, while LCAs are useful for quantifying impact, we must acknowledge their limitations when used as a comparative tool. In this article, we’ll break down what they do well, where they fall short, and how they fit into a brand’s sustainability strategy.
Key Components of a High-Quality Life Cycle Assessment
A credible LCA follows ISO 14040 or ISO 14044 standards and undergoes third-party review. Essential components of a high-quality LCA include:
Defining the Scope of an LCA: Cradle-to-Gate vs. Cradle-to-Grave
The scope definition in an LCA includes the life cycle model, the system boundary, assumptions, the functional unit of measurement, and relevant impact categories for the assessment. This information establishes the baseline considerations for the study. The life cycle model outlines which stages of a product’s lifecycle will be assessed and establishes clear system boundaries. Commonly used models include:
- Cradle-to-gate: From raw material extraction to the product leaving the factory
- Cradle-to-grave: From raw material extraction through disposal of the product
- Cradle-to-cradle: From raw material extraction through the recycling process, incorporating the material’s reuse
LCAs can also provide information on different environmental impact categories, such as eutrophication, ozone depletion, or eco-toxicity. The most commonly seen impact category is climate change, which measures the product’s carbon footprint in kg of CO2 equivalent. However, other categories— for example, a product’s impact on soil acidity or the impact on nutrient pollution in water bodies—can also be assessed. This provides a more precise understanding of how the environment is being affected.
Why High-Quality Data Matters in LCAs: Inventory Analysis Explained
The inventory analysis is a crucial step in an LCA, involving data collection across all assessed stages of a product’s lifecycle. The data can include energy consumption, emissions, transport distances, production quantities, water usage, and land use. The more reliable the data, the better the results.
Primary data sourced from internal operations and external suppliers is the most accurate. However, when data gaps emerge, they are addressed using estimations from databases, such as Ecoinvent. The accuracy of an LCA heavily depends on data quality—reliable, high-quality primary data leads to more precise results. Establishing strong communication channels with suppliers and using standardized data collection templates are essential for ensuring consistency and credibility in the assessment.
How LCAs Assess Environmental Impact: Turning Data into Insights
The impact assessment is the process of translating the collected inventory data into quantifiable environmental insights. Using background databases and specialized modeling software, the data is analyzed to determine its contribution to each selected impact category. This step helps quantify the environmental footprint of each stage in the product’s lifecycle, providing a clearer understanding of which processes or materials drive the most significant impacts.
Interpreting LCA Results: Using Data to Drive Sustainability Decisions
The interpretation phase of an LCA turns the collected data and impact assessment into actionable insights. By identifying environmental hotspots within the value chain, companies can pinpoint critical areas for improvement and develop targeted sustainability strategies. LCAs also help businesses measure progress over time, comparing year-over-year performance to track the impact of sustainability initiatives. Additionally, scenario analysis allows brands to evaluate alternative materials, production methods, or supply chain changes to determine the most sustainable path forward.
The Limitations of LCAs
LCAs are an important tool to communicate a company’s commitment to sustainability and transparency. However, their findings must be interpreted within the context of their specific scope and methodology. A well-executed LCA acknowledges these constraints, ensuring realistic expectations about what the assessment can and cannot achieve.
LCAs Dont Always Allow for Fair Comparison
One major limitation of LCAs is their inability to provide direct comparisons between materials from different brands. Variations in scope definitions, data quality, background databases, and underlying assumptions make it difficult to generate fair, one-to-one comparisons.
For example, a B2B company’s LCA may follow a standard cradle-to-gate approach, while a B2C company may find it more relevant to assess cradle-to-grave impacts, leading to significantly different conclusions. Without standardization across studies, comparing results can be misleading.
LCAs Often Overlook Localized Environmental Impacts
Additionally, LCAs primarily assess global and regional environmental impacts, often neglecting localized effects. Factors such as noise pollution, biodiversity loss, and site-specific deforestation may not be fully captured, despite their significant ecological consequences. As a result, while LCAs provide a broad understanding of environmental impact, they should be supplemented with localized data where possible to create a more comprehensive sustainability strategy.
How Rheom Materials Uses LCAs to Improve Sustainability
At Rheom Materials, we are committed to providing materials with the highest biobased content, and lowest possible environmental impact. That’s why we have partnered with Circuvate to prepare early-stage LCAs for our biobased leather alternative, Shorai, and our biopolymer resin, Benree. These assessments follow ISO 14044 guidelines and use a cradle-to-gate scope, the most relevant approach for our B2B materials. They will help us identify key contributors to global warming potential (GWP) and focus our efforts on reducing impact hotspots within our manufacturing process.
What Our LCAs Reveal: Comparing Shorai and Benree to Conventional Materials
Our current assessment shows that the latest version of Shorai has the potential to reduce GWP when considering CO2 uptake by up to 90% compared to conventional polyurethane-based synthetic leathers. These new results show significant improvements over previous versions of Shorai, reinforcing our commitment to continuous impact reduction
Similarly, in our most recent assessment for our biopolymer resin, Benree, our LCA compared its global warming potential to ABS plastic, revealing a 102% reduction in impact when CO2 uptake is factored in.
In both assessments, we ensured a fair comparison by using the same scope, methodology, and database as the incumbent materials.
The Future of LCAs: Why They Matter for Sustainable Innovation
LCAs are one of the most powerful tools for measuring environmental impact. They help companies, like ours, identify hotspots, track improvements, and compare scenarios to reduce their environmental footprint.
At Rheom, we are committed to utilizing LCAs to help us understand the impact of our materials and to drive transparency with our partners. By continuously refining our approach, we are helping brands make informed, data-driven sustainability decisions.
