We are excited to announce that the second volume of the Global Guidance on Environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicators (GLAM) is now ready and accessible directly through our website!

Through this report, the aim of the Life Cycle Initiative is to initiate a global process to reach consensus on recommended environmental indicators and characterisation factors (CFs) for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). Four initial topics were discussed in international task forces for 24 months before concluding with the publication of Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicators Volume 1 (Frischknecht & Jolliet 2017; Jolliet et al. 2018).

The four topics were climate change, fine particulate matter impacts on human health, water use impacts (scarcity and human health impacts), and land use impacts on biodiversity. The same process was replicated for additional environmental topics for the second report, namely 1) acidification and eutrophication, 2) human toxicity 3) mineral resources 4) soil quality and related ecosystem services, 5) ecotoxicity, as well as 6) crosscutting issues.

The delivery of this report involved academic domain experts, LCIA method developers, consultants, industry associations, and users of life cycle information, including intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), government, industry, and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs). This enabled to maintain the balance between scientific rigour and practicality, to bridge the gap between scientific complexity and the call for meaningful and well-tested environmental indicators, while carefully defining the domain of applicability for which the developed indicators are appropriate.

The first volume is still available on our website and you are invited to discover our second and latest exciting volume!