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What LCA Methods Measure

  • Nature: how production and use affect ecosystems.
  • Human health: potential harm to people across the life cycle.
  • Resources: pressure on material and energy availability.

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Common Reporting Methods

  • EF 3.1 (Environmental Footprint): an EU method used for European EPDs and PEFs. It assesses **16 indicators **spanning climate, human health, and nature; results include normalisation and weighting to help contextualise them.
  • ReCiPe: widely used in academic work. It expresses results through three clear endpoints: damage to human health, damage to ecosystems, and damage to resource availability.

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Making Results Tangible

Impact categories can feel abstract. ReCiPe’s endpoints make them concrete—showing, for example, how many species are lost or how many years of human life are lost when producing a product. That framing helps teams understand what the numbers actually mean.

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Key Takeaways 📌

  • LCAs go beyond CO₂e; they aggregate evidence across nature, human health, and resources.
  • EF 3.1 = 16 indicators (with normalisation/weighting) used in EU contexts.
  • ReCiPe = three endpoints that turn complex results into understandable outcomes.