LCAst - Prospective life cycle assessments based on the ecoinvent database

ifeu-paper 03/2023

Authors: Axel Liebich, Johannes Müller, Daniel Münter, Clemens Wingenbach, Regine Vogt

In sustainability research, the term 'prospective life cycle assessment' has become established for future-oriented life cycle assessment studies - both for product life cycle assessments in a future economic system and for analyses of the transformation scenarios themselves. The research activities at ifeu in this field and the resulting computer-aided analysis methods - in particular involving the ecoinvent life cycle assessment database - run under the name "LCAst" - a keyword that combines the terms "LCA" (life cycle assessment) and "cast" (prediction). This methodology paper describes the development to date at ifeu and provides an outlook on potential and possible applications.