In short: There is no general obligation to carry out a life cycle assessment in the EU. However, more and more regulations require life cycle data, for example for the carbon footprint of batteries, for new buildings from 2028 and as evidence for environmental claims in advertising. After the Omnibus package, the CSRD only applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million in net turnover. Suppliers still receive data requests from their customers. An LCA is carried out in accordance with ISO 14040/14044 in four steps: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation.

Many companies are currently looking closely at sustainability reporting and the life cycle assessment of their products and processes (LCA). This is driven both by regulatory requirements from the EU and national governments and by changing purchasing behaviour and higher expectations from customers and business partners for climate-friendly, environmentally conscious products. In addition, stricter rules for environmental claims in advertising have applied since 27 September 2026: anyone who advertises with terms such as “environmentally friendly” must be able to prove it.

An LCA is the most comprehensive way to capture the environmental impact of a product over its entire life cycle. Depending on the approach, this covers all phases, from manufacturing and packaging through use to the disposal of the product and the resources involved.

Standards and established procedures now exist for LCA. Below, we present the most common approaches. Depending on the type of product or service, one method may be more suitable than another.

If your challenge is more complex: at the end of this article, we present an example of a company that gained significant value from a custom LCA software we developed.

There is no general obligation to carry out a life cycle assessment for every product. However, several EU regulations require data that can only come from a life cycle perspective. An overview (as of November 2026):

• Batteries: The EU Battery Regulation provides for a carbon footprint declaration, starting with electric vehicle batteries and rechargeable industrial batteries above 2 kWh. The obligation applies once the EU has adopted the corresponding calculation method.
• Buildings: Under the recast EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, the global warming potential over the entire life cycle must be calculated and disclosed in the energy performance certificate: from 2028 for new buildings over 1,000 m² and from 2030 for all new buildings.
• Sustainability reporting (CSRD): After the 2026 Omnibus package, the reporting obligation only applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million in net turnover.
• Products (Ecodesign Regulation): The EU is gradually defining, product group by product group, which environmental requirements products must meet and which information must be provided in the digital product passport.
• Imports (CBAM): The definitive phase of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism started in 2026. Importers of steel, aluminium, cement and other goods must report embedded emissions from 50 tonnes per year.
• Advertising: Since 27 September 2026, generic environmental claims without proof have been prohibited.

Important for mid-sized companies: Even if you are not subject to reporting obligations yourself, large customers request environmental data from their suppliers. If you have assessed your products, you can answer these requests quickly.

For many companies, an LCA is therefore still voluntary. But more and more companies are carrying out life cycle assessments, and the risk of falling behind competitors grows if the topic is neglected. The German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, in German) also highlights the benefits of life cycle assessment:

A life cycle assessment helps companies improve their environmental performance and operate more sustainably in the long term. The following reasons speak in favour of carrying out an LCA.

• Reporting obligations and customer requests
  The CSRD, CBAM, the Battery Regulation and the Ecodesign Regulation require environmental data, either from you directly or via your customers. A life cycle assessment provides the data basis for this.
• Identifying potential for optimisation
  LCAs help identify hidden environmental impacts along the entire value chain. Companies can make processes more efficient, save resources and reduce costs in the long term.
• Improving competitiveness
  Customers and business partners increasingly value transparency and sustainability. Companies that can make specific, verifiable environmental claims about their products improve their market opportunities and strengthen their image.
• Driving innovation
  Analysing environmental impacts reveals weaknesses in product design that can lead to innovation. Companies develop new, more sustainable products as a result.
• Long-term cost savings
  Conserving resources not only benefits the environment but also lowers operating costs. Less material use and more efficient processes lead to long-term savings.
• Risk reduction
  Companies that know and reduce their environmental impact minimise risks related to future environmental legislation and rising raw material costs.
• Support for certification
  Environmental certifications such as ISO 14001 or the EU Ecolabel require a basic understanding of environmental impacts. A life cycle assessment provides the necessary data and supports the certification process.

There are many good reasons for an LCA. In summary: by carrying out a life cycle assessment, companies take an important step towards greater sustainability while securing long-term economic benefits.

The standards ISO 14040 and 14044 are the international standard for carrying out life cycle assessments (LCA). Both date from 2006 and were amended in 2017 and 2020. They ensure that LCAs are carried out consistently and transparently, regardless of which product or process is being assessed. These standards give companies a reliable method for evaluating environmental impacts and make different studies comparable.

• Goal and scope definition: In this first step, the purpose and scope of the study are defined. This includes which life cycle phases (e.g. raw material extraction, production, transport, use, disposal) are considered and which environmental impacts are analysed. Depending on the use case, it may make sense to look at different life cycle phases.
• Life cycle inventory (LCI): This is where data is collected. All inputs (raw materials, energy and water) and outputs (emissions, waste, wastewater) over the entire life cycle of the product are recorded. This data forms the basis for the further analysis.
• Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA): The collected data is converted into environmental impacts. This includes assessing effects on various impact categories such as climate change (CO₂), ozone depletion, acidification or eutrophication.
• Interpretation: In the final step, the results are summarised, interpreted and evaluated against the defined goals. This results in recommendations for reducing negative environmental impacts.

ISO 14040/14044 ensure that all steps of an LCA are transparent and consistent. Following these standards ensures that results are scientifically sound and comparable. LCA software can be used for all four steps.

There are various approaches to conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), depending on which part of a product's or process's life cycle you want to evaluate. The most common methods are Cradle to Grave, Cradle to Cradle, and Gate to Gate. These approaches primarily differ in how comprehensive the analysis is and which life cycle phases are covered.

The Cradle to Grave approach examines the entire life cycle of a product, from "cradle" to "grave." This means every step is analyzed, from raw material extraction to production and usage, all the way through to disposal. This method provides a complete overview of environmental impacts and highlights where the greatest savings potential exists along the product's life cycle.

The Cradle to Cradle approach goes a step further. It also analyzes the entire life cycle but with the goal of returning the product to the cycle after its use phase. The focus here is on designing materials and resources so that they can be reused or recycled after use, without generating waste. The concept is based on a circular economy, where there is no "grave," and products continuously flow into new production processes.

Cradle to Gate is a partial view of the product life cycle. It analyzes the product’s life cycle from raw material extraction ("Cradle") up to the point where it leaves the factory ("Gate"). The usage and disposal phases of the product are not included in this approach. It is often used when companies want to assess only the production process without considering the subsequent phases.

The Gate to Gate approach focuses on a specific section of the life cycle, particularly the processes within a specific production step or company area. This partial analysis can be useful for evaluating the environmental impacts of a single production process without considering the product’s full life cycle. Gate to Gate is often applied when companies want to optimize individual production steps.

The Gate to Grave approach focuses only on the usage and disposal phases of a product. It begins when the product leaves the factory ("Gate") and ends with its disposal ("Grave"). This approach is used to concentrate on the environmental impacts after the product’s manufacturing, such as energy consumption during use or its recyclability at the end of its life.

This method is commonly used in the energy and transport sectors. Well to Wheel considers the entire energy flow of a system, from raw material extraction (e.g., oil extraction) to use (e.g., combustion in a vehicle engine). It is a specialized form of LCA mainly applied to evaluate fuels or energy carriers, focusing on efficiency and environmental impacts throughout the entire energy chain.

Well to Tank is a part of the Well to Wheel approach, focusing on the environmental impacts of fuel supply, from raw material extraction up until the moment the fuel reaches the vehicle tank. In this approach, the upstream energy production is evaluated without considering the actual use in the end product.

Each of these methods serves specific purposes and helps businesses analyze various aspects of the life cycle. Depending on the objectives of the analysis and the processes to be optimized, it may be useful to choose one of the above-mentioned approaches or even combine several methods.

Once you have defined the goal and scope of the life cycle assessment, the next step is the inventory analysis, in which the required data is collected. Several challenges arise along the way. One of the biggest is the immense amount of data that has to be collected and managed. New measurements also often have to be added later. For new products, data gaps frequently occur because certain substances or process steps are not yet included in common environmental databases.

In such cases, secondary data from comparable products or processes is often used. Usage data, such as the lifetime or disposal of a product, is also often not directly available for new products. Estimates, scenarios or mathematical models are frequently used to fill in the missing information.

For comparing products, the European Commission has also recommended its own method, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).

Two LCA approaches can be used for the inventory analysis: a screening LCA or a scientific LCA.

A Screening LCA is a simplified method aimed at quickly providing an initial overview of the environmental impacts of a product or process. This option is particularly suitable when time is limited or when a first assessment of optimization potential is needed. Secondary data or averages are often used instead of extensive data collection, allowing potential environmental "hotspots" to be identified quickly.

However, this comes at the cost of accuracy, as the Screening LCA is primarily intended for rough preliminary assessments, and the results are not as precise as those obtained from detailed analyses.

In contrast, the Scientific LCA provides a comprehensive and precise analysis. Here, as much primary data as possible is gathered to assess the environmental impacts in detail. This method is more complex and time-consuming, as it requires the full collection of all relevant substances and processes. LCA consultants use various mathematical models to calculate missing values. Working with LCA consultants is essential to close the gaps in environmental databases and still obtain the most accurate results possible.

The advantage of this method is significantly higher accuracy, making it indispensable for scientific research and robust findings. It provides reliable results that can serve as the basis for strategic decisions or certified environmental labels.

The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) is the most complex part of an LCA. To complete it, various LCA software tools are available that assist with data collection and analysis. These tools are connected to environmental databases and can access existing data sets.

However, the more detailed the LCI needs to be and the more complex the products and production chains are, the harder it becomes to manage the LCI using standard LCA software.

• Standard software often cannot meet the highly specific needs of individual companies.
• They are designed for broad, cross-industry use. Frequently, these tools are built for either highly qualified LCA consultants or the end customer, but not both user groups.

For a large drugstore chain, we developed specialised LCA software to comprehensively assess the environmental impact of its products.

The software records environmental impacts along the entire value chain and presents them transparently. Automated processes significantly reduce the effort of manual data collection and analysis, saving both time and money. In addition, the user-friendly interface allows different stakeholders and environmental databases to be integrated, further increasing the accuracy and efficiency of the life cycle assessment.

More about our services: Custom LCA software

* This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The information reflects the status as of November 2026 and has been carefully researched. However, we cannot guarantee that it is complete or up to date. Please check which requirements apply to your company in your specific case.