LCIpraktijken

LCIpraktijken refer to the practices and methodologies used to conduct Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs) as part of life cycle assessment (LCA). They cover the collection of input and output flows for products, processes, or services across their life cycles, and the documentation of boundary definitions, data quality, and uncertainty. Core components include selecting a functional unit, defining system boundaries, gathering primary and secondary data, and applying allocation or system expansion rules when a single process yields multiple functions.

Standards and guidelines: LCIpraktijken are guided by international standards such as ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, as well as guidance from the ILCD Handbook and related LCA reference datasets. Data are drawn from primary data supplied by process experts and secondary databases; results are expressed as flows (for example, CO2-equivalents) per functional unit. The choice of allocation methods, temporal scope, and regionalization affect comparability.

Applications: LCI results underpin product environmental footprints (PEF), organizational footprints, and sustainability reporting. They support sensitivity analyses, hotspot identification, and decision-making in product design, sourcing, and policy evaluation.

Challenges: Data availability and quality vary by region and sector, leading to gaps and uncertainty. Regionalization, time-dependence, and representativeness complicate comparisons across studies. Resource demands for data collection and potential confidentiality issues are also considerations. Researchers mitigate these through transparency, data quality assessment, and uncertainty analysis.

Trends: There is a move toward open data, shared databases, and harmonization of methodologies to improve comparability. Tool developers and researchers work on better data collection workflows, automation, and integration with digital product passports and other sustainability innovations.