LCA Product Screening Tool

One major output of a recently ended project, Circular Industrial Plastic (CIP), was the development of an LCA Product Screening Tool developed by DTU Sustain. The intention was to provide companies with a quick way of making an estimate of the environmental impacts from waste management (plastic). The tool facilitates an overview of the plastic materials and end-of-life recycling technology chosen. The user may define up to three scenarios per product. The scenario definition worksheet allows users to assess environmental impact of different recycling pathways for plastic waste and a ‘one pager’ combining and comparing the scenarios is part of the tool. The modelling is done according to the consequential method. The tool thus includes large-scale consequences of the decision-making.

Relevance and Purpose

The LCA Product Screening Tool is exclusively intended for use in the early product design stage and for internal discussions in your company. It can help companies identify different waste management strategies for their products. The tool is intended to provide an early estimate of the potential environmental impacts of different waste treatment methods for the handling of plastic waste. It is not intended to replace a full LCA for the handling of plastic waste. The tool is exclusively intended for use in the early product design stage and for internal discussions. It should not be used for reporting of results to the public. While the LCA Product Screening Tool may give you some early guidance in the early stages of product development, please remember that using the tool is at your own responsibility.

The tool allows for the comparison of up to three scenarios. The different scenarios could be used to test different technologies, assumptions, lifetime impacts etc. The scenarios should not be used to compare different products, materials, or technologies as the uncertainties associated with the results are expected to be too large.

Feel free to download the LCA Screening Tool and the LCA Screening Tool User Guide.

Feel free to find inspiration in our gathered examples of use cases