Summer School Life Cycle Assessment: from theory to practical application

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a worldwide used methodology for the compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts associated with products, processes or services. Thanks to its holistic perspective – taking into account all the stages from a cradle to grave approach – LCA evaluates the potential impacts related to any economic activity including raw material extraction and processing, distribution, use or consumption, re-use, recycling, and final disposal. People (from R&D at SMEs to policy officials) use LCA for many applications (from designing car bumpers to formulating a national waste policy). Many education programs propose LCA courses but they are currently restricted to few hours and correspond more to an initiation or an introduction to LCA than to an actual competence. However, with current and upcoming new regulations, the professional world requires more and more competences in LCA. The course is mainly oriented to MSc / PhD students and professionals who want to achieve a first degree of specialization in this field, but also to other people with a specific interest in these topics and a limited amount of time. For beginners, no basic knowledge of Life Cycle Assessment is needed. This course presents the main concepts of LCA in a format accessible to a broad audience.