Facts and figures from road testing the guidance on organizational life cycle assessment

An anonymous survey about the method application was conducted among the road testers. The analysis assessed, among others: (i) which goals the organizations initially pursued and their achievement; (ii) how previous experience with environmental tools contributed to the study design; (iii) which methodological options were chosen (like the scope of the study, data collection approaches, impact assessment methods and tools, and data sources); and (iv) which methodological challenges were faced.

The survey showed that analytical goals were of priority for most road testers and obtained a higher achievement level than managerial and societal goals for which either long-term measures or the inclusion of stakeholders are needed. Previous experience with product- or organization-related tools considering the whole life cycle proves useful due to available data and/or organizational models. The categorization of organizational activities, data collection, data quality assessment, and interpretation proved being the most challenging methodological elements. In addition, three cross-cutting issues of method application were identified: aligning the O-LCA study to previous environmental activities, designing the study, and availability of personnel and software resources.

The road-testing organizations verified the applicability and usefulness of the O-LCA Guidance and significantly widened the pool of case studies available. On the other hand, additional guidance for methodological challenges particular of the organizational level, the availability of software tools able to support O-LCA application, region-specific LCI databases, and a broadly recognized data quality assessment scheme would facilitate conducting O-LCA case studies.