Principles of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Sustainability

Develop your knowledge of sustainable production and life cycle assessment

On this course, facilitated by the Institute of Biological, Environmental, and Rural Sciences (IBERS), you’ll gain a comprehensive introduction to Life Cycle Thinking and its significance in achieving environmental, social, and economic sustainability.

You’ll also explore the importance of zero-carbon initiatives in the journey toward global sustainability.

Navigate value chains and circular economies

The curriculum dedicates the first weeks to understanding the inter-connectedness of value chains, circular economies, and the robust evaluation frameworks provided by life cycle approaches.

You’ll engage with concepts that support sustainable production, learning how to apply LCA methodologies to assess and improve the sustainability credentials of products and practices in the agrifood sector effectively.

Work with diverse tools for comprehensive evaluations

Throughout the course, you will explore the spectrum of LCA tools, focusing on their uses and the specific aspects of value chains they are designed to evaluate.

This course is aimed at providing you with the knowledge and skills to choose and utilise the most relevant LCA tools for assessing environmental, social, and economic impact, ensuring a tactical approach to sustainability in your projects or organisation.

Critically apply life cycle thinking to your professional and personal projects

This final segment consolidates your understanding, equipping you with the capability to critically engage with LCA frameworks, interpret results, and identify limitations, thereby enhancing your approach to sustainability.

By the end of this course, you’ll have the tools to apply life cycle thinking to various contexts, enabling informed decision-making in creating and interpreting LCA reports.

This course is ideal for environmental scientists, sustainability professionals, and anyone looking to deepen their understanding of zero carbon initiatives and LCA methodologies to drive sustainable change.

This course is ideal for environmental scientists, sustainability professionals, and anyone looking to deepen their understanding of zero carbon initiatives and LCA methodologies to drive sustainable change.

• Identify the main reasons for using life cycle approaches, and the challenges associated with the evaluation of value chains.
• Solve which are the appropriate evaluation tools to the value chains they could be used to assess.
• Demonstrate the main reasons for taking a life cycle approach to evaluating a value chain.
• Compare the roles and strengths and weaknesses of different life cycle assessment tools.