Contents
- LC Net Focus
- Announcements
- Project & Activity Updates
- Life Cycle Calendar
- Job Announcements
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As we bid farewell to 2021, we are excited to welcome 2022 with a renewed sense of purpose.
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2021 was a memorable year, in many ways. COVID-19 continued to play a large role in our lives. Unfortunately, this meant that the return to in-person events and opportunities was not as common as we had hoped, but on the bright side, following from our learning experience in 2020,
the virtual world has become much more efficient and stimulating- we always find the silver-lining! The Life Cycle Initiative used this experience to continue its diverse work,  driving the uptake of a Life Cycle Approach across the world.
The Life Cycle Initiative has had tremendous success in 2021 in relation to its studies on single-use plastic products and their alternatives, in particular on nappies (see article below). These studies were so successful that the Nappy Alliance requested to work with us in hosting a webinar, which generated widespread interest publicly. Coming soon will be the LCA study on single-use masks -- vital research as the pandemic continues!
 Another exciting development has been various elements of work related to the Sustainable Consumption and Hotspot Analysis Tool (SCP-HAT). Version 2.0 of the SCP-HAT has been developed throughout 2021 and is now available to the public. This updated version of the tool has much more extensive analysis capabilities and additional time and sector coverage. The SCP-HAT is causing a storm in the policy-making scene and this growing interest has led to the development of the SCP-HAT Regional Centres of Excellence in the latter part of 2021. These RCoEs will act as experts of the SCP-HAT in their regions, increasing the reach of the SCP-HAT, and aiding policymakers in their regions to harness the power of this tool. Watch this space!
 LCA is popping up everywhere, and this is evident in the space of Plastic Pollution. One of our greatest highlights this year was the request for a webinar and resource on ‘What does a life-cycle approach applied to address marine litter and plastic pollution look like?’ This was a direct request from member states as they prepare their discussions for a global agreement on plastic pollution. We strive to drive this discussion forward and integrate LCA further on this topic through the discussions in UNEA in late February and through 2022!
 In 2020, the updated Social LCA Guidelines were released (EN, IT, NL), and in 2021, the translated version of these guidelines were launched in French, Italian and Dutch, alongside the Methodological Sheets. This release culminated at an extremely successful hybrid event in Brussels, with over 300 people in attendance both in-person and online.
The Life Cycle community is fiercely passionate and engaged and it is this passion that allows the Initiative to continue meeting its goals and reaching higher- bringing life cycle thinking to the forefront of conversations in both businesses and in policymaking. We need your help and support, and we look forward to strengthening our collaboration with you, organisations and individuals, in 2022. In this pivotal moment in history, it is imperative we work together.
The above is just a small glimpse into the work that has been completed by the Life Cycle Initiative in 2021. As the pandemic continues, we strive to continue our work and deepen our impact, aiming to provide countries with information on their key hotspots of unsustainable consumption and production, so COVID-19 recovery plans can symbolise the beginning of a new, more sustainable economy. Don’t forget to stay up to date with us and our work at the Life Cycle Initiative website.
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New version of the SCP-HAT interactive online tool launched
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The Sustainable Consumption and Production Hotspots Analysis Tool (SCP-HAT) is an interactive online tool for analysing the environmental and socio-economic performance of countries to detect ‘hotspots’ where unsustainable consumption and production practices may be particularly prevalent and policy action is needed.
With the update of SCP-HAT to v2.0, time and sectoral coverage, as well as the number of environmental and socio-economic indicators have been extended and many new features like explanatory videos and ready-made reports have been added. We also see the SCP-HAT’s value is being utilised in many other ways. For instance, recently it has been a key data source for the development of the EQuiP Tool 8 by UNIDO. The EQuiP tool 8 is a tool that policymakers can use to measure, design, and evaluate the green transition of their manufacturing industries. This module introduces indicators and analyses along five key thematic areas: Energy & CO2, water use, material use, waste management, and environmental goods. The SCP-HAT was used in the development of this tool.
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Argentina launches new SCP Strategy
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 We are very proud to announce that Argentina, one of the most active members of the Life Cycle Initiative governments constituency, has launched its National Sustainable Consumption and Production Strategy (ENCPS); the strategy was built on the knowledge and data from the SCP-HAT. The SCP-HAT particularly enabled the Argentinean Government to clearly identify the portion of their impacts occurring domestically but driven by foreign consumption through exports, as well as the main sectors driving specific environmental footprints. We are absolutely thrilled to see this progress with countries using the SCP-HAT to devise their national SCP strategies!
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New tutorial published: National Guidance for Plastic Pollution Hotspotting and Shaping Action Tutorial Manual
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 The Life Cycle Initiative released the report on “National Guidance for Plastic Pollution Hotspotting and Shaping Action” and its associated modules and tools jointly with IUCN in 2020. A tutorial manual is now also available on the Guidance website. This tutorial manual has been created to assist new users to getting started with the application of the Guidance. It aims to guide users step by step through the Hotspotting assessment by following a linear workflow. 6 Associated video tutorials have also been developed to provide further instructions. The links to the relevant videos can be found in the relevant chapters of the tutorial document.
The methodology has been piloted by IUCN in Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Thailand, Viet Nam, Cyprus, Menorca (Spain), and Tanzania (consult the pilot reports). Based on the learnings from the pilots, the modules and tools of the Guidance are regularly updated.
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Project & Activity Updates
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Nappies LCA meta-study gaining public interest
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The different LCA meta-studies on single-use plastic products and their alternatives continues to be an important resource for raising public awareness on the environmental impacts of single use plastic products vs. their reusable alternatives. In particular, there is an increasing public interest on the environmental impacts of single-use nappies throughout their life cycle. In the last few months, the LCA meta-study on nappies was referenced in several information and communication efforts.
In Ukraine, Zero Waste Lviv recently translated parts of the report and its corresponding video to Ukrainian as part of their informational and education campaign “Lose the Diapers”. The campaign aims to promote the use of reusable cloth diapers by raising awareness on their safety and benefits. The campaign was supported by the Department of Waste Management of Ukraine and the Lviv City Council. Zero Waste Lviv created a dedicated webpage for the Ukrainian version of the LCA meta-study.
In South Africa, the Daily Maverick published a two-part article, based on the findings of our LCA meta-study on nappies to highlight the importance of shifting to reusable options in order to reduce the impact of single-use nappies in landfills. The two-part article cites the LCI report in explaining why reusables are better and providing reusable options available locally in South Africa.
More resources about the single-use nappies and their alternatives as well as informational videos can be found here.
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More people learned about Life Cycle Thinking via our
e-learning courses in 2021
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In 2021, over 1170 learners completed the e-learning courses offered by the Life Cycle Initiative. This is a 65% increase from the number of learners in 2020, and this is to a large extent thanks to the many collaboration agreements with some of our University members that use the modules as part of their formal education. These include Suez Canal University, Egypt; University of Balamand, Lebanon; University of the Witwatersand, South Africa; Universidad Politécnica De Madrid, Spain; Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Colombia; Federal University of São Carlos – Sorocaba, Brazil.
Three e-learning courses -- Introduction to Life Cycle Thinking, Life Cycle Thinking in Business Decision Making, and Life Cycle Thinking in Public Policy Formulation -- are offered in different languages.
In addition to all the funding partners of the Life Cycle Initiative, the e-learning modules have been largely funded by the European Commission.
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Improving GLAD Metadata via user experience
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 The Global LCA Data Access (GLAD) Network, which is led by the Life Cycle Initiative, is the largest directory of life cycle assessment (LCA) datasets. It aims to increase accessibility and interoperability of LCA data to promote the use of LCA in decision-making, guiding both governments and businesses to strive towards sustainability.
Metadata descriptors are defined and used in GLAD’s interface. Metadata should enable data to be searchable and reusable. As defined by the FAIR Principles for Data, data is searchable when it is described with rich metadata that is registered or indexed in a searchable resource, and thus can be easily discovered (by humans and/or computers). Data is reusable when it is richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes to determine its usage, and thus can be replicated and/or combined in different settings. Through the years, the need to reassess metadata descriptors increased as more experience was gained about how nodes connect to GLAD and how users use GLAD.
Having this in mind, the Metadata Working Group, led by two members of the Technical Management Group of GLAD, Peter Arbuckle and Carolina Scarinci, organized different activities to gather insights about metadata from different users during 2021. Peter led a series of interviews to the data providers (nodes) while Carolina invited end-users to participate in focus group in October and December. [ Read more about the focus group...]
The GLAD team expresses their heartfelt thanks to all the participants who took their time to participate in the focus groups. Results of the focus groups are being used to identify key areas for improvement on GLAD, to promote its further use and encourage the application of LCA in decision-making towards sustainability. |
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Enhanced availability, accessibility, and interoperability of LCA data for textile sector with GLAD via InTex project
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 We are delighted to highlight that GLAD is also an integral element of the EU funded project “Innovative Business Practices and Economic Models in the Textile Value Chain (InTex)” that UNEP is implementing.
One of the national components of this project focuses on the use of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology within textile SMEs in Africa while incorporating a strong component on LCA data generation. The aim is to increase the access to environmental and life cycle data (towards developing and connecting national interoperable, PEF-compliant, LCA datasets for the textiles sector to GLAD) so that textiles businesses and policymakers can make better informed decisions and implement relevant strategies. Thus, businesses and member states will benefit from enhanced availability, accessibility, and interoperability of LCA data for the textile sector through GLAD. Activities in this project will also support the maintenance and, where necessary, continued development of GLAD.
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Publication of framework paper for marine plastic waste pathways in LCIA (MarILCA project)
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 The MarILCA project, which aims to integrate potential environmental impacts of marine litter into Life Cycle Assessment, has published its framework paper, entitled A framework for the assessment of marine litter impacts in life cycle impact assessment, in Ecological Indicators. The publication can be viewed Open Access.
This publication provides a consistent and comprehensive framework for modelling plastic litter impact pathways in LCIA models. This framework supports coordinated research towards the development of harmonised pathways to account for impacts of plastic litter, specifically to the marine environment. The framework includes an overview of life cycle inventory requirements (leakage to the environment; a focus of other research efforts), and a detailed description of possible marine litter impact pathways, modelling approaches and data requirements. Focus is given to marine plastic litter and consider the potential contribution of different impact pathways to overall damage in the main operational areas of protection, as well as recently proposed ones.
In parallel, a letter to the editor was published in September 2021 in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, entitled "Marine plastics in LCA: current status and MarILCA’s contributions", co-authored by Anne-Marie Boulay, Francesca Verones and Ian Vázquez-Rowe.
This letter focuses on analysing the advances that the MarILCA project has achieved in the past three years, identifies the challenges ahead of us in terms of including marine plastic waste in LCIA models and invites researchers to apply to the MarILCA Scientific Committee if they have research projects that are aligned with the aims of MarILCA.
In parallel, different projects within the Scientific Committee of MarILCA are currently advancing with different impact pathways to ultimately produce characterisation factors that can cover the gap that marine litter currently represents in Life Cycle Assessment. We hope to provide further advances of our research through 2022, including participation at key conferences and the publication of new papers that develop the framework published in Ecological Indicators.
MarILCA is co-chaired by Anne-Marie Boulay and Ian Vázquez-Rowe, with the support of the Life Cycle Initiative and FSLCI and is part of the Life Cycle Initiative’s GLAM project.
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USEtox: Chemicals of concern in building materials
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H umans worldwide are exposed to a wide range of chemicals in building materials from furniture to wall paints. However, exposure estimates are rarely available and not considered in current environmental life cycle performance assessments of buildings and related materials and products.
A new open access paper on “Chemicals of concern in building materials: A high-throughput screening” addresses this limitation and developed a quantitative model to evaluate exposure and related health risk for more than 300 unique chemical-building material combinations. This study identified 55 chemicals of high concern, which should be prioritised for substitution.
The building materials model is already implemented in the latest beta version of the global scientific consensus model USEtox, which is further described in the related open access paper “ “Exposure and toxicity characterization of chemical emissions and chemicals in products: Global recommendations and implementation in USEtox”.
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Event recap: Implementing the New UNEP 2020 S-LCA Guidelines • Brussels, Belgium
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The SLC Alliance, in collaboration with the UNEP Life Cycle Initiative, the Belgian Federal Institute for Sustainable Development and the Québec government, hosted at the Residence Palace in Brussels as well as online, the event entitled “Implementing the New UNEP 2020 S-LCA Guidelines” on the 7th of December 2021. The 3-hour event brought together approximately 50 people at the Residence Palace, in addition to over 300 people online. During the event, new resources for S-LCA practitioners and users were launched: the UNEP 2021 S-LCA Methodological Sheets; the translation of the UNEP S-LCA Guidelines in Dutch, and Italian. A French translation and the report on the S-LCA pilot studies are both coming soon.
In the meeting, we had the opportunity to hear from various organizations who were involved in the pilots: the International Copper Alliance, Japfa, Ponzio Alluminio and University of Quenca. The event also showcased a panel entitled “Global initiatives that are shaping the future”, focusing on several high-level initiatives that are focusing on putting in practice a social life cycle perspective. This event was hosted by Mrs. Zakia Khattabi, the Belgian Minister of Climate, Environment, Sustainable Development and Green Deal, who gave a welcome speech underlining the unique importance of considering social impacts in global supply chains. Thank you to all of the participants and contributors for this event.
The SLC Alliance is cordially inviting everyone to a follow-up webinar on February 22nd, which will focus exclusively on the S-LCA Methodological Sheets and the Pilots. For more information, please contact SLC Alliance by email.
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An operational method for linking the SDGs to LCA
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An operational method for linking the SDGs to LCA is ready! Ever since the SDGs were introduced, companies have been wanting to contribute to achieving them. Unfortunately, the SDG targets and indicators were not developed with businesses in mind, so it has been difficult to effectively measure and monitor the results of your efforts.
 The UNEP Life Cycle Initiative project to link the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to life cycle assessment (LCA) has tackled this challenge by making the SDGs more practical for businesses. Within the project, two complementary approaches have been developed to help businesses measure their performance on the SDGs they care about: the Life cycle SDG Screening and the Life cycle SDG Assessment. After two successful rounds of case studies, and a final consultation round, the project is now finalized, and has resulted in operational methods that can be used to evaluate companies’ contributions to the SDGs.
The method materials will be published soon, so keep an eye on the website!
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News from the Life Cycle Community
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Abstract submission is now open for the LCA Foods 2022 Conference in Lima, Peru
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Abstract submission for the 13th International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment of Food (LCA Foods 2022) is now open and will remain available until January 31st, 2022.
 The conference will be held at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, in Lima, Peru, October 12th-14th 2022.We are offering a hybrid conference in which face-to-face and virtual interaction will be promoted in a post-pandemic world. This call includes oral and poster presentations. The submission link can be found here:
The theme of this conference will be The Role of Emerging Economies in Global Food Security. In this context, the main aims of the conference are to:
- Continue with the work done in previous LCA of Foods conference by creating a space for the LCA community to share and discuss about their advancements.
- Foster networking between research groups and industries on a global scale.
- Provide a space for LCA practitioners and developers to exchange ideas on methodological developments.
- Introduce policy-makers and industries in the Latin America – Caribbean region to the world of LCA, allowing them to meet the LCA community.
The official language of the Conference will be English; however, we are planning to have special sessions in Spanish and Portuguese. We look forward to welcoming you at LCA Foods 2022.
Find more information on the event.
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Life Cycle Community Calendar
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SETAC 8th World Congress
4-8 September 2022
The SETAC 8th World Congress will now be held from 4-8 September 2022 in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands. Please save the date, and stay tuned for updates as we get closer to the meeting.
More information.
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LCA Foods 2022 Conference in Lima, Peru
12-14 October 2022
In addition to the call for abstracts above, check more information on the event through the link below.
More information.
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EcoBalance 2022
30 October - 2 November 2022
The International Conference on EcoBalance, organized by the Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan (ILCAJ), has been held in Japan since 1994 as a biennial conference. Setting life cycle thinking as its core-concept, EcoBalance is recognized as one of the world's premier conferences for academic, industry, and government professionals. EcoBalance serves as a forum for discussions on environmental performance evaluation, information disclosure regarding evaluation results, and for the development and implementation of discussed methods.
More information.
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Life Cycle Job Announcements
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Join the UNEP Life Cycle team as an intern!
 If you are passionate about getting life cycle approaches to inform decisions towards sustainable consumption and production, are in the final year or have just finalised your BSc or Masters, and want to join a high-paced and dynamic team, consult the description and apply by January 16, 2022. If you know anybody who would be a perfect fit, please share this opportunity!
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Unilever – Environmental Sustainability Scientist
As an Environmental Sustainability Scientist you will be involved in conducting research to help advance life cycle and related approaches needed to assess the environmental sustainability of business actions. This will include the development, evaluation and application of new scientific approaches, methods and models for assessing Unilever’s product portfolio in the areas of Foods, Home Care, and Beauty and Personal Care. You’ll have the opportunity to build collaborations and partnerships with relevant academic, governmental and industrial groups and to present your research at international conferences. You’ll be able to apply your sustainability expertise and life cycle thinking in support of product innovation, supply chain management, brand development and advocacy activities.
More information.
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Unilever – LCA Analyst/Practitioner
As an LCA Practitioner you will work with colleagues from across Unilever’s business in the areas of Foods, Home Care, and Beauty and Personal Care to better understand the environmental impact of our products, help drive innovation and strategy to reduce environmental impacts, and input into advocacy activities.
Additionally, you will be involved in conducting research to help advance life cycle and related approaches needed to improve the assessment of environmental impacts related to business actions. You will have the opportunity to build collaborations and partnerships with relevant academic, governmental and industrial groups and to present your research at international conferences.
More information.
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LEGO - Carbon Footprinting Specialist
Would you like to join the team leading the LEGO Group’s environmental strategy and help to deliver the LEGO Group's Planet Promise?
More information.
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Join us as a Funding Partner
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The work of the Life Cycle Initiative would not be possible without the support of its sponsors. By contributing to the Initiative, businesses and governments not only gain access to unparalleled expertise in how to align their activities with their United Nations Environmental and Social Development commitments, but they also play a role in transforming their activities, as models of Life Cycle Thinking. If you are interested in becoming a funding partner, please contact the Initiative.
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Ongoing call for LC Net contributions
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Members of the Life Cycle Initiative, please feel free to submit your event, job vacancy, news, capacity development opportunities, topics and stories related to life cycle thinking and LCA, to be shared with the global life cycle community. We are always looking for featured coverage on the experience how life cycle thinking contributes to different policy agendas, sustainable business and decision making, in various countries and regions.
Note that we cannot accept contributions of a commercial nature. LCNet is released bimonthly in the beginning of January, March, May, July, September and November; please send us your piece approximately two weeks before the release date. We look forward to your contributions in disseminating life cycle knowledge from global policy and business agendas!
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THANK YOU TO OUR FUNDING PARTNERS!
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