The Maturation of LCA as a Basis for Sustainability Metrics across the Organization

Discussions about life cycle assessment (LCA) usually center around either its tremendous promise for helping us make sense of the very complex questions posed by sustainability issues, or its occasional failure to live up to that promise - and the frustrations surrounding the resources required along with the limited issue LCA is competent to address. The sustainability community has learned a tremendous amount in recent years and one can now see a coming-of-age of LCA-based approaches that are more practical, more focused and more scientifically advanced than what was available just a few short years ago. This session will focus both on explaining these developments to the participants with a set of expert speakers, as well as offering active feedback. In particular, the session will look at how LCA has been maturing beyond its core and reliable applications, such as product carbon foot-printing, into applications that address many more types of questions with more reliable information. The themes to be presented will focus on how LCA has matured in dimensions of the subjects on which it is focused, the issues it is addressing, and the scale on which it is happening.