Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), also known as Carbon Footprint is a systematic analysis of the environmental impacts of a product, service or organisation in which all consumption of resources and energy as well as emissions and waste along the life cycle are analysed. In order to distinguish between the many existing use cases of LCAs, the company’s objectives must be questioned in advance.
Why do I need a Life Cycle Assessment? Three directions for identifying the right life cycle assessment:
Products
You want to balance a product, e.g. a building material? We offer a product carbon footprint in compliance with the international standard ISO 14067. Or would you prefer an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) with recognised certification from the Institut für Bau und Umwelt e.V.?
In both cases, the entire life cycle („from cradle to grave“) and possible effects on the environment of products, services and processes are considered. All life phases of the product, from the extraction of raw materials to production, use, waste treatment, recycling and final disposal, are included in the balance sheet.
By taking the entire life cycle into account, environmental impacts can be identified and thus avoided. Furthermore, it can be determined in which phase of the life cycle or in which process the greatest environmental impacts occur.
Buildings
Would you like an evaluation of a part of a building or even a holistic building evaluation? Especially for architects or builders we offer the green building assessment.
In particular the DGNB, BREEAM and LEED clarifies which effects sustainability has in the building sector. Supported by national and international legislation, ecological construction is gaining more and more importance, whereby efficiency and grey energies are taken into account in accounting. The authorities‘ demand for a precise material and ecological consideration of the building materials used is increasing.
In this life cycle assessment, balances are combined with a holistic life cycle analysis of various building materials used. A detailed energy balance is drawn up over the utilisation phase, which can be used to assess the total greenhouse gas potential and energy flows.
Organizations
Would you like to make your company climate-neutral, calculate its emissions or create a corporate carbon footprint for your company?
In compliance with ISO 14064 and the internationally recognised Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol), we prepare your company’s own environmental balance sheet. In contrast to the two previous categories, the system boundary for the company-related Life Cycle Assessment is drawn in such a way that only sources of emissions are considered that can be adressed to the company itself. In addition to the main sources of emissions, which represent the company’s direct and indirect emissions (Scope I and II), emissions from upstream and downstream processes in the value chain (Scope III) are also included in the accounting. The aim of the accounting is to quantify the ecological footprint of the entire company and to identify potential savings.