Up to 80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage [1]. Put another way: by the time your product reaches the production line, most of its footprint has already been written. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the tool that lets you read that footprint — and change it — while there is still time.
In 2025 we published our life cycle assessment guide for sustainable companies, focused on the what and the why. A year later the context has shifted: Europe has started charging for the carbon embedded in certain imports, tougher rules against unsubstantiated environmental claims apply from 27 September 2026, and more and more clients are asking for product-level data, not just company-level data. This 2026 edition is hands-on: when you need an LCA, how to run one step by step, how it compares with (and differs from) a corporate carbon footprint, and which mistakes to avoid. It draws on the experience we have built at CarbonBox supporting companies and events across the region.
What is LCA, and what information does it provide that a corporate carbon footprint does not?
LCA is a methodology standardized by ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 [2], [3] to quantify the environmental impacts of a product, service or event across all of its stages: from raw material extraction (the “cradle”) to final disposal or recycling (the “grave”). It is not limited to carbon: depending on the goal of the study, it can cover water use, land use, acidification or toxicity.
The difference from a corporate footprint lies in the question each one answers. A corporate footprint (a GHG inventory under the GHG Protocol, with its Scopes 1, 2 and 3) answers “how much does my organization emit in a year?”. An LCA answers “how much impact does one unit of my product generate over its whole life, and where is it concentrated?”. That is why LCA is the tool for decisions on design, materials, packaging or suppliers, while the corporate inventory is used to set company-wide targets and to report.
The two complement each other: a well-built LCA feeds the value-chain categories of the inventory with finer data, as we explain in Integrating LCA and Scope 3. But they are not mixed: an LCA organizes information by life cycle stage, not by scope.
| Criterion | Corporate footprint (GHG Protocol) | Product carbon footprint (ISO 14067) | Full LCA (ISO 14040/44) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question | How much does the company emit in a year? | How much GHG does one unit of product generate? | Which environmental impacts does the product generate, and where are they concentrated? |
| Organizes data by | Scopes 1, 2 and 3 | Life cycle stages | Life cycle stages |
| Impacts covered | Climate change only | Climate change only | Several (climate, water, land, resources, etc.) |
| Used for | Company targets, ESG reports, tenders | Product sheets, client requirements, CBAM | Ecodesign, comparing alternatives, EPDs, environmental claims |
| Typical effort | Medium | Medium | High (more data and impact categories) |
A product carbon footprint (ISO 14067) [4] is, in practice, an LCA focused on a single impact category: climate change. For many SMEs it is the best starting point, because it answers what clients are asking for today without the workload of a multi-criteria study.
Why does LCA matter more in 2026 than in 2025?
Three regulatory changes are turning product data into a commercial issue, not just an environmental one — especially for companies that export or sell to multinationals:
- The EU’s CBAM has entered its definitive phase. Since 1 January 2026, EU importers of cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilizers, hydrogen and electricity must declare the emissions embedded in those goods and surrender certificates for them [5]. What does that mean for a Latin American supplier? Your European client will ask you for emissions data per product, calculated with a life cycle logic. If you do not have it, default values apply — and they tend to be higher, which makes your product more expensive than a competitor’s that does have the data.
- Unsubstantiated environmental claims are now unfair commercial practices in the EU. Directive (EU) 2024/825 applies from 27 September 2026 [6]. Among other things, it bans generic claims such as “eco-friendly product” when they cannot be demonstrated, and claims that a product has a neutral or reduced impact based on offsetting emissions. To back up a product claim you will need evidence, and product-level evidence is built with LCA. If you want to go deeper into the reputational risk, read our 3 keys to avoiding greenwashing and the difference between net zero and carbon neutral.
- Ecodesign and digital product passports are moving forward. The EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) starts precisely from the premise that design determines up to 80% of environmental impact [1], and it opens the door to product-level information requirements. The first concrete case is the battery passport, which includes information on its carbon footprint [7]. Even if your sector is not on the list yet, the direction is clear: the market will ask for product data that is traceable and comparable.
The business consequence is straightforward: whoever has their LCA first negotiates better, answers client questionnaires faster and avoids having a third party assign them a default number.
What are the 4 phases of a life cycle assessment?
ISO 14040 defines four phases [2]. Here they are, with what actually has to be decided in each one and the questions worth asking:
1. Goal and scope definition
This is the phase that most shapes the quality of the result. Here you decide what the study is for (internal ecodesign? answering a client? a public claim?), the functional unit (the amount of function you are going to compare — for example “packaging 1 kg of coffee for 12 months”, not simply “one bag”) and the system boundaries: cradle-to-gate (until the product leaves your plant) or cradle-to-grave (including use and end of life). Key question: who is going to read the result, and what decision will they make with it? If the answer is “a European client who will compare it with another supplier”, the level of rigour and review changes completely.
2. Life cycle inventory (LCI)
This is data collection: raw materials, energy, water, transport, packaging and waste at every stage. There are two kinds of data: primary data (your invoices, plant consumption, actual kilometres) and secondary data (emission factor databases for what you do not control). A practical example: for a food company, plant energy will be primary data, while the cultivation of an imported ingredient will probably be secondary data. Our recommendation: start by identifying the 3 or 4 inputs that weigh the most and get primary data for them; for the rest, well-documented secondary data is acceptable.
3. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
Here the inventory is translated into impacts using characterization methods: for climate change, for example, every gas is converted into kg of CO2 equivalent. If you only care about carbon, this phase is simpler; if you run a multi-criteria LCA, you need to choose a recognized method and justify it. What to ask whoever carries out the study: which method and which version of the factors were used, and why? Without that traceability, the number cannot be defended.
4. Interpretation
This is the phase where the LCA becomes decisions. It identifies hotspots (the stages or inputs where impact concentrates), tests how sensitive the results are to the assumptions, and makes recommendations. A good report does not end with “your product emits X kg CO2e”, but with “if you switch to this packaging alternative, you cut Y%, and it costs Z”.
How do you run your first LCA without getting lost?
These are the steps we follow at CarbonBox when a company runs its first LCA:
- Pick a single representative product. The one with the highest sales volume, or the one the market asks about most. Running an LCA of the whole portfolio at once is the recipe for finishing none of them.
- Start with the product carbon footprint, cradle-to-gate. It is what clients ask for most today and what you can control with your own data. Once the process runs smoothly, extend it to cradle-to-grave or to other impact categories.
- Map the process before requesting data. Draw the flow diagram with your production team: what goes in, what comes out and in what quantities. Avoid asking every department for “everything”; request specific data for each box in the diagram.
- Involve your key suppliers from the start. Raw materials are usually the heaviest stage. Ask them whether they have the footprint of their product, or at least energy and transport data.
- Document every assumption. Distances, emission factors, allocation between co-products. Whatever is not documented cannot be reviewed or updated next year.
- Turn hotspots into a plan. Prioritize 2 or 3 actions with their estimated cost and savings. An LCA that stays in a PDF helps nobody.
One lesson that keeps coming back: the first LCA always reveals something nobody expected. It may be that refrigerated transport weighs more than production, or that a packaging change cuts the footprint more than an energy-efficiency project. That surprise is precisely the value of the method.
What if you want to assess an event?
Events are also estimated with a life cycle approach, not with Scopes 1, 2 and 3. The stages are event planning, setup, execution and teardown, and in each one we quantify attendee travel, energy, food, materials and waste. That is how we did it for a large-scale festival, whose lessons we share in Events with impact: lessons from Festival Estéreo Picnic.
Common life cycle assessment mistakes (and how to avoid them)
- A poorly defined functional unit. Comparing “one bottle” of glass with “one bottle” of plastic ignores that one is reused 20 times and the other is not. Define the unit by the function the product delivers, not by the object.
- System boundaries that hide what matters. A cradle-to-gate study of a household appliance leaves out the use stage, which is usually the heaviest. Always justify what you include and what you leave out, and say so explicitly when you communicate.
- Using another country’s emission factors without adjusting them. Colombia’s electricity, with a high share of hydropower, has a very different factor from that of a coal-dependent country. Generic factors can distort your hotspots.
- Communicating comparative results without review. If you are going to say publicly that your product is “better” than another, ISO 14044 requires a critical review of the study [3]. And under the new European rules, an unsubstantiated comparative claim is a legal risk [6].
- Doing the LCA only once. Processes, suppliers and factors change. Schedule an update whenever something relevant changes in the product or, at the very least, every two to three years.
Frequently asked questions about LCA
Is a life cycle assessment mandatory in Colombia or Latin America?
Today there is no general obligation in the region. The pressure comes from the market: multinational clients, exports to the EU (CBAM, anti-greenwashing rules) and tenders that ask for product data. That is why it makes sense to treat it as a commercial requirement before a regulatory one.
How long does an LCA take?
It depends on the scope and on how organized your data is. A cradle-to-gate product carbon footprint for a single product with data at hand can take a few weeks; a multi-criteria cradle-to-grave LCA with critical review, several months. The bottleneck is almost always data collection, not the calculation.
What is the difference between an LCA and an EPD?
The LCA is the study; the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardized way of communicating its results, verified by a third party and based on product category rules (PCRs) that make products in the same sector comparable. The LCA comes first; the EPD comes afterwards, if the market asks for it.
Can I use my LCA to claim my product is carbon neutral?
An LCA gives you the data to reduce, not a licence to claim neutrality. In the EU, from September 2026, claims that a product is neutral based on offsetting with carbon credits are banned practices [6]. Communicate what you reduce and how you estimated it.
Conclusion: LCA as an advantage, not a formality
Life cycle assessment is no longer an academic exercise. In 2026 it is how you answer, with data, a client who asks about your product; how you get ahead of rules that are already in force in your destination markets; and, above all, how you find where to cut costs and impact at the same time. If you are just starting, remember: one product, cradle-to-gate, primary data where it weighs most, and an action plan at the end.
Want to run a life cycle assessment or a carbon footprint for your product? At CarbonBox we support you from scope definition all the way to the reduction plan. Talk to our team.
References
- European Commission, “New law to make products on the EU market more sustainable,” 19 Jul. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/new-law-make-products-eu-market-more-sustainable-2024-07-19_en
- International Organization for Standardization, ISO 14040:2006 — Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework. Geneva: ISO, 2006.
- International Organization for Standardization, ISO 14044:2006 — Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Requirements and guidelines. Geneva: ISO, 2006.
- International Organization for Standardization, ISO 14067:2018 — Greenhouse gases — Carbon footprint of products — Requirements and guidelines for quantification. Geneva: ISO, 2018.
- Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Spain), “CBAM definitive period.” [Online]. Available: https://www.miteco.gob.es/en/cambio-climatico/temas/cbam/periodo-definitivo.html
- European Parliament and Council of the EU, “Directive (EU) 2024/825 as regards empowering consumers for the green transition,” OJ EU, 6 Mar. 2024. [Online]. Available: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32024L0825
- European Parliament and Council of the EU, “Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries,” OJ EU, 2023. [Online]. Available: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1542/oj