105
© The Author(s) 2015
G. Sonnemann, M. Margni (eds.), Life Cycle Management,
LCA Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment,
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-7221-1_9
Chapter 9
How to Make the Life Cycle Assessment Team
a Business Partner
Mark Goedkoop , Eric Mieras , Anne Gaasbeek , and Soledad Contreras
Abstract In this chapter we explore the need and opportunities to make the life
cycle assessment (LCA) team more relevant for the business. Sustainability trends
and alternatives for LCA are analyzed to identify what makes them relevant for and
appealing to business managers, the diffi culties LCA practitioners face to get their
message across have been identifi ed, and a fi ve-step approach to make the LCA
team a business partner will be described. The goal is to empower LCA teams and
practitioners to create sustainable value for the business they work in.
Keywords Champion for LCA • Circular economy • LCA community • LCA team
• Life cycle assessment • Life cycle management • Product sustainability •
Sustainability
1 Introduction: 20 Years of Life Cycle Assessment, Have
We Understood the User Needs?
One may wonder why it is still a relatively small community that performs LCA and
why LCA has not become more mainstream in business processes, while LCA
methodology is used by thousands of companies and has proven to be a relatively
robust tool for understanding the impacts of products. Most major multinational
companies nowadays have something like an LCA department, which is usually a
team of a handful of specialists that perform LCAs mostly to support internal
decisions.
To explore this issue we fi rst take a broad perspective of the developments in
companies regarding product sustainability; these developments are too often
missed by LCA practitioners. Next we will describe our fi ndings from research we
M. Goedkoop (*) • E. Mieras • A. Gaasbeek • S. Contreras
PRé Consultants , Amersfoort , The Netherlands
e-mail: goedkoop@pre-sustainability.com
© The Author(s) 2015
G. Sonnemann, M. Margni (eds.), Life Cycle Management,
LCA Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment,
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-7221-1_9
Chapter 9
How to Make the Life Cycle Assessment Team
a Business Partner
Mark Goedkoop , Eric Mieras , Anne Gaasbeek , and Soledad Contreras
Abstract In this chapter we explore the need and opportunities to make the life
cycle assessment (LCA) team more relevant for the business. Sustainability trends
and alternatives for LCA are analyzed to identify what makes them relevant for and
appealing to business managers, the diffi culties LCA practitioners face to get their
message across have been identifi ed, and a fi ve-step approach to make the LCA
team a business partner will be described. The goal is to empower LCA teams and
practitioners to create sustainable value for the business they work in.
Keywords Champion for LCA • Circular economy • LCA community • LCA team
• Life cycle assessment • Life cycle management • Product sustainability •
Sustainability
1 Introduction: 20 Years of Life Cycle Assessment, Have
We Understood the User Needs?
One may wonder why it is still a relatively small community that performs LCA and
why LCA has not become more mainstream in business processes, while LCA
methodology is used by thousands of companies and has proven to be a relatively
robust tool for understanding the impacts of products. Most major multinational
companies nowadays have something like an LCA department, which is usually a
team of a handful of specialists that perform LCAs mostly to support internal
decisions.
To explore this issue we fi rst take a broad perspective of the developments in
companies regarding product sustainability; these developments are too often
missed by LCA practitioners. Next we will describe our fi ndings from research we
M. Goedkoop (*) • E. Mieras • A. Gaasbeek • S. Contreras
PRé Consultants , Amersfoort , The Netherlands
e-mail: goedkoop@pre-sustainability.com