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Figure 3.
Product life-cycle inventory (Fava et al., 1991; US Congress Office… 1992). The 
inputs constitute of energy, raw-materials and products. The outputs include the multifaceted 
waste management.
LCA is an increasingly popular method of evaluating the significance and quality of the 
environmental impact of those inputs and outputs by quantifying the net-flows of different 
chemicals, materials and energy (see, e.g., Antikainen et al., 2013; Askham, 2011; Blackburn

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& Payne, 2004). It is not yet mandatory, but LCA is used as the basis for ecolabels and carbon 
footprints, for instance. Also, the standardised Environmental Product Declarations, created in 
accordance with standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization 
(ISO), are a way of quantifying the emissions by using information gathered via LCA. When 
a company conducts an assessment of resource use and emissions and their health impacts, it 
creates possibilities for improving the ecological and economical efficiency and socio-cultural 
acceptability of their product, process or activity (Askham, 2011; Anastas & Lankey, 2000; 
Anastas & Warner, 1998; Böschen et al., 2003; Karpudewan, Ismail & Mohamed, 2011). 
LCA enables novel directions in the fields of R&D, investment decisions, communication and 
marketing (Askham, 2011).
LCA is carried out in phases: definition of the goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact 
assessment and interpretation (Askham, 2011). These phases are illustrated in Figure 4. In 
practice, LCA is a complicated field of expertise. LCA can be conducted using one of the 
over one hundred modelling programs available. These programs save and analyse data of 
inputs and outputs in different stages of the production chain. This type of information can be 
found in several databases. (Blackburn & Payne, 2004; Koskela et al., 2010) 
Goal and scope definition