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

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May/June 2023 LC Net Newsletter highlights

Call for Funding: a new project to develop consistent guidelines to model and consider Biogenic Carbon in LCA • GLAD continues to innovate • INC-2: Registration Open • Calling for your inputs on national/regional events related to life-cycle approaches • Interns: Welcome to the new! and farewell to the old

New Biogenic Carbon project gets underway; experts sought

This project aims to use an expert-led multi-stakeholder process to develop a recommendation that brings harmonisation, stability, verifiability and enhanced credibility of LCA results for food and other bio-based products.​

What did we accomplish in 2022? Find out in our latest Progress Report

2022 has been a monumental year, marking the 50th anniversary of UNEP and the 20th anniversary of the Life Cycle Initiative. Life-cycle thinking as an approach to inform decisions, received…