Our Methods

LCYCLE LCA TOOL is a web-based tool developed by passionate professionals in the field. The tool runs on carefully selected datasets and impact assessment methods closely following EU standardization and guidelines for Life Cycle Assessment.

LCYCLE provides public and private organisations with the ability to conduct single-issue LCAs in a wide context of use cases:

• Consultancy and advisory to third-parties,
•  Self-assessment and inhouse monitoring of impact related to products and services.
•  Mapping high-level impact patterns for spatial impact assessments such as trends in consumption, useand waste patterns on a city, region and/or nation-wide scale (examples of use).
• Impact-driven innovation, research & development;
  and more.

We apply OpenLCA[1] to access input data for LCYCLE’s backend, with data mainly yet not exclusively originating from the Ecoinvent 3.6 dataset and [2] the Idemat 2021 dataset [3].

• Carbon footprint: IPCC 2013 GWP 100a [4] as recommended by the European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment: ILCD [5] (International Reference Life Cycle Data System);
• Water Depletion: ILCD 2011; Resource depletion – water; midpoint; freshwater scarcity; Swiss Ecoscarcity 2006.
• Total distance in kilometer and mode of transport: Supply chain data provided by the customer in combination with Google maps and Sea Distances.

In addition, LCA data is included from carefully selected LCAs from peer reviewed scientific papers.
This is mostly done for innovative textile production processes or processes poorly modelled in existing databases. Assumptions made for these additions are stated in detail in each report

The functional unit applied in LCYCLE LCA TOOL is per definition set to a kg of product with the scope set from raw materials to the manufacturing of the product with all transport processes included. (Cradle-to-Gate).

LCYCLE Applies the ILCD method for its impact numbers, which is standardized according to EU-PEF method: European Product Environmental Footprint (EC, 2018. Product environmental footprint category rules, version 6.3). Our LCAs tool follows the general principles of the ISO14044 quality standard for Life Cycle Assessment.

References:

1. https://www.openlca.org/
2. https://www.ecoinvent.org/database/older-versions/ecoinvent-36/ecoinvent-36.html
3. https://www.ecocostsvalue.com/EVR/model/theory/5-Idemat.html
4. https://www.ipcc.ch/
5.  https://eplca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/uploads/ILCD-Recommendation-of-methods-for-LCIA-def.pdf
6.  https://www.iso.org/standard/38498.html