Partners for Innovation can help you conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA).  But rather than just providing you with a report full of figures, we prefer to offer tailored advice on how your company can become more sustainable. Jannes Nelissen is our LCA expert and explains Partners for Innovation’s approach in this Q&A.

 What is an LCA?   

A life cycle assessment allows you to calculate how sustainable a product or service is. It is a standardized method that allows you to look at up to twenty different aspects. The most frequently requested aspect is CO2 equivalent emissions: in other words, how much greenhouse gas emissions are released when manufacturing your product or providing your service. Other aspects we look at include the impact on biodiversity, the impact on human health, and the use of raw materials.

Why do companies want an LCA?  

It often starts with a question from a client or customer who wants to know the “carbon footprint” of a product or service. A company that wants insight into this can approach us. We can then do two things: simply perform the LCA and deliver a report, or perform the report and then work with the customer to actually reduce that footprint. We prefer to do the latter.

What types of LCA are there?  

We offer them at three levels. You can opt for a ‘quick scan,’ in which we conduct thorough research but deliver a concise report, and provide insights on about four environmental impacts. Sometimes this is sufficient. However, when you want to communicate externally and have more time and budget available, we can produce a comprehensive LCA report, in which we look at many more environmental impacts and explain the method and research in detail. And with certain clients, such as the globally operating companies DAF and Vanderlande, we work together over a longer period of time and improve various products and business processes.

What distinguishes you from specialized LCA agencies?  

We believe in a personalized approach: an LCA is not standard work. Of course, certain things can be automated or even partially done by AI. We often work closely with the client, providing explanations and advice about the process, regularly calling their suppliers to obtain information, and working together to identify areas where environmental gains can be made. This is different from simply running a calculation tool on known data.