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Across Europe and globally, companies are under pressure to show how their products affect the environment – not just at the factory gate, but across the entire lifecycle. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and modern product sustainability software give them a way to do this in a structured, repeatable way. Yet some industries benefit far more than others because of their material intensity, regulatory exposure, or customer expectations. This article focuses on where lifecycle-based sustainability creates the most value today, and how tools like Sustainly help teams move from spreadsheets and estimates to reliable, comparable data.

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Why lifecycle data has become a business tool

Lifecycle models compare products and processes consistently: same system boundary, same functional unit, same impact categories. When this is embedded in software to measure product sustainability, teams can:
  • compare materials or suppliers before locking in a design
  • quantify a manufacturing carbon footprint instead of relying on generic factors
  • use a reporting tool for sustainability metrics that regulators and customers recognise
The industries below have three things in common:
  1. high material or energy use
  2. strong regulatory or market pressure
  3. product and supply-chain choices that can realistically change
That combination makes lifecycle data commercially relevant, not just “nice to have”.

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Construction and building materials

The construction sector works with cement, steel, insulation, timber, and complex assemblies whose environmental profiles differ widely. Developers and public clients increasingly ask for documented performance, and many certification schemes require product-level data. For manufacturers of building products, a tool to calculate the environmental impact of products helps in three ways:
  • preparing compliant documentation for tenders and certifications
  • demonstrating improvements when switching recipes or suppliers
  • supporting sales and marketing with verifiable numbers, not generic claims
Sustainly gives technical teams and commercial teams access to the same central data, so sustainability does not live only in one department.

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Manufacturing and industrial products

Manufacturers operate on tight margins and are used to optimising processes. What has changed is that carbon, energy use, and resource efficiency now affect both cost and licence to operate. A sustainability analysis software for production processes allows manufacturers to:
  • understand how design choices drive the manufacturing carbon footprint
  • compare different production routes or plant locations on more than cost alone
  • anticipate regulatory trends that link emissions to tax or reporting duties
With an AI-supported copilot and reusable templates, Sustainly lets experts scale from a few flagship LCAs to coverage of whole product families – without having to build every model from scratch.

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Food, agriculture, and retail

Food systems are responsible for a large share of global emissions and land use, and policy is moving towards climate-related labelling and stricter green claims rules. For producers and retailers, the question is no longer whether to quantify product performance, but how to do it at scale. Lifecycle-based software helps them move beyond single “carbon per kilogram” figures to more complete product sustainability metrics, including farming practices, processing, packaging, and waste. This supports:
  • credible communication to retailers and end consumers
  • better sourcing decisions between regions or production methods
  • preparation for future disclosure and labelling schemes
Because Sustainly centralises data from suppliers and internal teams, it becomes easier to keep assumptions consistent across many recipes and SKUs.

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Packaging and fast-moving consumer goods

Brands in packaging, household, and personal care must respond to retailer scorecards, NGO scrutiny, and rapidly evolving regulation. Lightweighting, recycled content, refill systems, and material substitutions all change environmental performance – sometimes in unexpected directions. An eco-design software for product development allows packaging and product teams to model these scenarios before making commitments. Rather than debating “paper vs. plastic” on intuition, teams can run side-by-side comparisons and see which option actually performs better across climate, resources, and end-of-life. Sustainly supports this by offering a single place where design, sustainability, and marketing teams can work from the same product data and generate consistent evidence for claims.

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Electronics, technology, and batteries

Electronics and batteries rely on global supply chains and critical raw materials. The bulk of their footprint often occurs long before the product reaches the final assembler, which makes supply chain emissions software particularly important. Using lifecycle-based tools, hardware and mobility companies can:
  • map how components and suppliers contribute to a device’s footprint
  • test alternative material or design options early in development
  • respond more easily to customer questionnaires and procurement requirements
Sustainly’s AI copilot reduces manual data structuring, so sustainability specialists can focus on model quality and interpretation rather than file wrangling.

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Fashion and textiles

Textiles combine fibre production, spinning, dyeing, finishing, cut-and-sew, and distribution across many countries. At the same time, fashion brands are under pressure from both consumers and regulators to move away from generic “eco” messaging. A tool to calculate environmental impact of products at style or material level helps brands:
  • compare fibres and blends on water use, emissions, and resources
  • understand trade-offs between durability, recyclability, and footprint
  • prepare for digital product passports and environmental claim rules
Because Sustainly is designed for both specialists and non-experts, sustainability teams can involve product developers and sourcing teams directly, rather than working in isolation.

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From single projects to a company-wide system

The common challenge across all these sectors is not running one high-quality assessment; it is doing this consistently for dozens or hundreds of products, and making the results usable for finance, product, sales, and leadership. This is where Sustainly’s approach matters:
  • Transparent AI copilot
    Automates repetitive modelling tasks while keeping assumptions visible. Teams always see how results were produced, which supports trust and internal review.
  • Scalable workflows
    Companies can start with a single product line, then expand to more markets, factories, or brands without reinventing their method each time.
  • Centralised sustainability data
    All product, process, and supplier data sits in one shared environment instead of scattered spreadsheets. This reduces duplication and makes a reporting tool for sustainability metrics much easier to maintain.
  • Collaboration across departments
    Role-based access makes it possible for engineers, sustainability specialists, and business users to work in the same system with different views, rather than exporting static PDFs back and forth.

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Choosing where to start

For most companies, the pragmatic starting point is one of:
  • a product range that is strategically important
  • a category under regulatory or customer pressure
  • a major tender or key account request that demands credible environmental data
From there, lifecycle modelling can expand into a repeatable way of working, supported by the right software rather than manual, one-off projects. Sectors with high material use, complex supply chains, or strong regulatory drivers will feel the benefits first — but over time, lifecycle-based sustainability will simply become part of how successful companies design, buy, and report. Sustainly’s role is to make that shift manageable: giving teams a clear, AI-assisted system to measure product sustainability, compare options, and communicate results without drowning in complexity.