Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Why Conduct a Life Cycle Assessment?
Accurately measure the environmental impact of your products and operations
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the standard scientific and operational tool for objectively evaluating the environmental impact of a product, service, or activity throughout its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction to end-of-life. Today, it is the standard method for objectively evaluating an eco-design approach, comparing different technical alternatives, and ensuring the reliability of environmental communications.
For industrial and energy companies, LCA is a strategic lever. It determines access to certain markets, regulatory compliance, and the credibility of reported environmental performance.
Beyond the metrics, LCA identifies your product’s key environmental “hotspots” and guides industrial decision-making.
LCA: The Foundation of Eco-Design
Understanding, Prioritizing, and Making Decisions Using LCA
At Kapstan, we firmly believe that any product can become more sustainable while maintaining its technical and economic performance.
This requires a tailored, rigorous, and innovative approach.
In a context of stricter regulations and increased demands from clients, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is becoming a key driver of competitiveness.
But LCA is not limited to a mere calculation exercise.
It allows us to prioritize action areas and transform environmental data into operational decisions.
Specifically, it enables you to:
- choose between multiple solutions,
- optimize design and processes,
- enhance the value of your products for customers and partners,
- ensure regulatory compliance.
It thus serves as the starting point for a structured eco-design approach.
A comprehensive approach from cradle to grave
A scope covering the entire lifecycle
Our Life Cycle Assessment studies cover every stage: raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use phase, and end-of-life (recycling, recovery, or disposal).
This comprehensive approach ensures a complete picture of your products’ environmental performance and prevents the shifting of environmental impacts. Above all, it provides the essential methodological foundation for developing your environmental declarations: FDES (construction sector) for publication on the INIES database, or PEP ecopassport® (electrical and electronic equipment).
Our 4-step support process: a structured methodology that complies with European standards
Scope and Definition
- We validate the study objectives, the product in question, the scope of the analysis, and the timeline. This phase ensures alignment between your strategic priorities and the LCA methodology.
Data collection and organization
- We provide a structured inventory covering input consumption, energy use, waste, transportation, and end-of-life assumptions. We work with your teams to streamline this process and ensure data quality.
Modeling and Calculation of Environmental Impacts
- Our models are created using SimaPro software, which utilizes the most recent versions of the Ecoinvent database. The consistent use of the latest available updates ensures the relevance of the impact factors. Calculations are performed in accordance with the European PEF-CR guidelines, thereby ensuring the scientific robustness and comparability of the results.
Presentation, critical review, and publication
- The results are compiled into a comprehensive LCA report and tailored to your needs in the form of an FDES data sheet or a PEP profile. If necessary, we arrange for a critical review by an independent third party and support you through the process until publication in the relevant databases (INIES, PEP ecopassport®).
Why choose our support?
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Recognized expertise in Life Cycle Assessment
Our studies are based on SimaPro software, the Ecoinvent database, and the European PEF-CR guidelines. This methodological rigor ensures robust and verifiable results.
Kapstan has conducted over 100 LCA studies certified by ADEME and supported the publication of several studies in recognized databases.
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A schedule tailored to your operational needs
Conducting a Life Cycle Assessment typically takes 1 to 6 months, including data collection, modeling, report writing, and, if necessary, a peer review.
We tailor the timeline to the pace of your industrial projects so that the LCA can be integrated into your product development phases.
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Strategic deliverables for your markets
In addition to technical reports, we produce the standardized summaries you need to support your business development. The FDES and PEP are essential performance metrics for responding to requests for proposals, promoting your products to engineering firms, and ensuring maximum visibility in regulatory databases.
Turning results into opportunities for action
LCA truly becomes valuable when it translates into concrete actions. At Kapstan, we support our clients in:
- Evaluating technical solutions or industrial alternatives
- Supporting eco-design initiatives
- Justifying and securing industrial or investment decisions
- Highlighting environmental performance to your stakeholders
Any questions?
It is not always required, but it is becoming essential to meet customer, regulatory, or industry requirements.
Yes, provided that the scope is equivalent. LCA allows for an objective comparison between technical alternatives.
Yes. An independent peer review may be conducted to verify methodological compliance.
Yes. In the construction sector, results can be published as an FDES in the INIES database, and for electrical and electronic equipment, as a PEP data sheet under the PEP Ecopassport® program.
LCA is a comprehensive scientific assessment. The FDES is its standardized version for construction products (based on INIES). The PEP is its equivalent for electrical, electronic, and HVAC equipment (PEP ecopassport® program). These data sheets serve as the “environmental passports” for your products
Case studies
All case studies
