Roadmap for LCA Database Development
Even though it is widely recognized that adopting a life cycle approach is key, the access to locally relevant LCA datasets (the building blocks of LCA studies), and the lack of capacity to generate them, is often a constraint in developing countries and emerging economies. The demand for environmental information on products is increasing, and thus the ability to generate, provide access to and apply such knowledge becomes a matter of competitiveness for exporting economies. For this reason, UNEP strives to provide technical support to Member States that request assistance in the development of national LCA databases.
The “Roadmap for national LCA database development — Guidance and recommendations from around the world” publication (in English / en Español) brings together the most recent efforts in supporting countries to develop and implement roadmaps and action plans, as an approach to establishing national LCA databases. Such roadmaps are a practical tool to raise and align the support and multi-stakeholder efforts required to generate, structure, and disseminate LCA data while pursuing interoperability with other data sources.
Webinar Overview of the Guidance
Watch this webinar to learn more about the guidance, its application and hear about the experiences of countries that are successfully advancing their national LCA databases.
Relevant documents
- Webinar presentations (pdf): slides used during the webinar.
- Webinar Q&A (pdf): the 28 questions raised during the session and answered are compiled into this document.
LCA Database Helpdesk
A key factor hampering the use of life cycle thinking in policy-making and environmental decisions, in countries around the world, is the lack of regionally representative data for Life Cycle Assessments (LCA). Having regionally representative data for LCA is key for measuring resource efficiency, environmental impacts and even circularity in our products and economies.
The Helpdesk is for individuals and entities wanting to increase LCA data availability by driving national LCA database development in their respective countries or regions.
