Applying LCA to support business activities

By Ann-Christin Pålsson & Ellen Riise

This part of the guide aims to describe how LCA can be introduced and applied within an organisation, to support a variety of different business activities and decisions in the supply chain. Results from LCA can be applied to support:

• Strategy development and planning
• Product development and improvement
• Sourcing and upstream supply chain management
• Marketing and external communication

Both SCA and AkzoNobel share their experiences on how they have worked with introducing and implementing LCA and how they are using LCA today to support different business activities:

• Experiences SCA: Integration of LCA at SCA hygiene business
• Experiences at AkzoNobel: How we work with LCA at AkzoNobel

Please note that the focus in this guide is on industrial applications of LCA. Therefore societal applications of LCA to support e.g. public policy making, planning, etc is not described. However, the general guidance in this guide is useful also for such applications.