Measuring Sustainability: Life Cycle Assessment for Policy and Practice

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

“Life Cycle Assessment” is a lecture- and practicum-based class primarily targeted at graduate students. The class is designed as a once-per-week session where we will spend about half the time on lectures and the other half on hands-on activities to practice LCA. The class is designed to introduce you to Life Cycle Assessment as a method for evaluating environmental, and social impacts of products, policies, systems, and services, with a focus on International Standards Organization (ISO)-compliant LCA. We will primarily be using OpenLCA, with some exposure to alternative tools. This course will particularly focus on LCA practice in the context of policy development, with emphasis on LCA’s role as a decision support tool. We will address the implications of LCA and related methods being increasingly required in policy contexts (e.g., for prioritizing grant recipients and allocating tax subsidies). We will also address the challenges associated with disparities in the maturity of various life cycle methods, most notably social LCA in comparison to environmental LCA and life cycle costing. We will evaluate published LCAs in forms like Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements, and also investigate the use of life cycle thinking and LCA for Environmental Product Declarations. The course will also emphasize the role of LCA in the energy transition, particularly given LCA’s strong role in greenhouse gas accounting, and explore how both technological and climate dynamics pose challenges for LCA practice. This course is primarily a methods course, and we will work through case studies and examples together both in and out of class, with a topical emphasis on energy, buildings, and climate due to LCA’s particular relevance in those areas.