With guided workflows and transparent AI, you can build a complete, decision-ready LCA in a matter of minutes — whether you’re a sustainability lead, product manager, designer, or simply new to the field. This guide walks you through the entire process of building your first assessment in a way that is structured, intuitive, and scalable for future product iterations.
🧭 Step 1: Set up your project
Start from the Sustainly dashboard and click “New Project.”Choose the type of assessment you want to run — from a quick product footprint to a more detailed lifecycle study. Add a few essentials:
- Product name or variant
- Functional unit (what service or quantity the assessment is based on)
- System boundary (how far across the lifecycle you want to assess)
Sustainly guides you through the setup with prompts that help clarify scope and keep assumptions aligned across your team.
⚙️ Step 2: Import or connect your data
Sustainly is built for teams that have data spread across multiple sources — from procurement sheets to manufacturing logs. You can bring data in three simple ways:- Manual entry for quick prototyping
- Spreadsheet upload using a clean, reusable template
- System connections that let you pull data from internal tools without copying files around
🧩 Step 3: Build your LCA model
Once your data is in place, Sustainly automatically structures the model for you.Instead of manually linking dozens of processes, you get a clear, editable flow of materials, energy, transport, and lifecycle stages. Within the interface, you can:
- Review and adjust inputs
- Add manufacturing steps or additional transport routes
- Define use-phase behavior
- Explore circularity scenarios such as reuse or recycling
- Run sensitivities to understand how assumptions change the outcome
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| ⚡ Guided Modeling | AI structures your model and surfaces inconsistencies |
| 🧱 Transparent Flows | Every step is fully visible, editable, documented |
| 🌍 Scalable Structure | Reuse model logic across future products |
📊 Step 4: Review results and hotspots
Once you click “Calculate,” Sustainly generates full impact results and presents them in clear dashboards designed for quick interpretation.You can identify:
- Which materials drive the largest impacts
- Which lifecycle stage matters most
- How design changes affect the footprint
- Where circularity or supplier improvements offer the biggest gains
Interpreting Results
Learn how to read impact charts and spot improvement opportunities.
Scenario Comparison
Explore how different design decisions shift your footprint.
🧾 Step 5: Generate reports and share insights
With one click, you can generate:- Stakeholder-ready summary reports
- Deep-dive documentation for internal reviews
- Shareable dashboards for cross-team collaboration
Reports are formatted using a transparent structure that makes verification and peer review easier.
🌱 Bonus: Reuse and scale your model
Once you’ve built your first LCA, the real value comes from reusing your structure across product variants or new iterations. Sustainly enables:- Cloning of existing projects
- Batch assessments for large product families
- Shared data libraries to keep materials and assumptions consistent
- Cross-team visibility so product, engineering, and sustainability stay aligned
❓FAQ
Do I need to be an LCA expert to use Sustainly?No. The workflow is built for beginners and experts alike — transparent AI helps guide decisions while keeping methodology clear. Can multiple teams work on the same assessment?
Yes. Sustainly offers a shared company hub so teams can collaborate, review progress, and reuse data across departments. How precise does my data need to be to begin?
Your first assessment can start with estimates. Sustainly helps you refine accuracy over time with structured, centralized data.