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  • Review Article
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Life-cycle assessment to guide solutions for the triple planetary crisis

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 4, pages 471–486 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution — the triple planetary crisis — increasingly threaten the Earth system, necessitating tools such as life-cycle assessment (LCA) that can evaluate the effectiveness of different prevention and mitigation strategies. LCA systematically quantifies the environmental impacts over the whole life cycle of products, processes or policy scenarios. LCA is frequently applied to uncover environmental hotspots and prioritize actions and is increasingly used to assess the environmental impacts of strategy implementation scenarios. In this Review, we discuss the role of LCA in evaluating and shaping strategies on the decarbonization of energy systems, circular economy, sustainable consumption and sustainable finance. We explore how emerging LCA-based approaches make use of the planetary boundaries framework and other environmental assessment tools to support decisions. Cross-comparisons between LCA applications for various mitigation strategies reveal differences in maturity level, methodological choices and the way that environmental assessment tools have been combined with LCA. Economy-wide LCAs on the decarbonization of energy systems and sustainable consumption are already common, whereas economy-wide applications to circular economy and prospective LCAs for sustainable finance are still in their infancy. Future research should develop systematic classification of decision-support problems, harmonized data and comprehensive guidance to improve robustness and credibility of prospective economy-wide LCA.

Key points

  • Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method used to quantify the environmental impacts of human activities with a systems perspective, from resource extraction and processing, to production, the use phase, disposal and transport processes. LCA assesses all three dimensions of the triple planetary crisis, including climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution-related health impacts.

  • LCAs are widely used to support decisions for transformative strategies — decarbonization of energy systems, circular economy, sustainable consumption and increasingly also sustainable finance — to combat the triple planetary crisis. The field is expanding from traditional product-level assessments to economy-wide assessments that identify levers of change and overall success of strategies.

  • Simple process-based LCAs of energy systems have, by and large, been superseded by whole-economy scenarios that include feedback effects and consideration of other technological changes. Furthermore, LCA is increasingly being applied in prospective or ex ante assessments.

  • In the field of circular economy, waste-prevention LCAs show that limited consumer acceptance, perceived lower quality of reused or refurbished products, and rebound effects often offset much of the intended benefit. Human consumption levels need to decrease rapidly, moving towards green lifestyles that focus on the satisfaction of human needs, rather than wants.

  • Combinations of LCA with other environmental assessment tools have allowed more comprehensive analyses, considering, for example, upper limits of material circularity or more realistic scenario predictions using economic models. Further standardization is needed to provide guidance on good practice and make prospective multi-indicator studies more robust and comparable to each other.

  • LCA can assess pathways towards a sustainable future and help to prioritize measures for implementation. More robust and detailed supply-chain information on materials, information on future technologies, and regionalized impact assessment models are required for reliable decision support on regional- to global-scale assessments.

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Fig. 1: The four phases of LCA illustrated with hygienic face masks.
Fig. 2: Simplified life-cycle assessment impact pathways and planetary boundaries situated in the drivers–pressure–state–impact–response framework.
Fig. 3: Technology choice in scenario assessment is affected by consideration of life-cycle impacts.
Fig. 4: Assessment of circular-economy systems.
Fig. 5: Interlinkages between a selection of environmental assessment tools with life-cycle analysis.

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Acknowledgements

F.V. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101059379. R.W. received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 821124 and the Czech Science Foundation Grant no. 23-07984X. The authors thank B. Dold for her support in managing the references and S. Anderson for English proofreading.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Stefanie Hellweg

  2. RDI Unit on Environmental Sustainability Assessment and Circularity, Environmental Research & Innovation (ERIN) Department, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), Esch sur Alzette, Luxembourg

    Enrico Benetto

  3. Department of Environmental Science, Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Mark A. J. Huijbregts

  4. Industrial Ecology Programme, Department for Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Francesca Verones & Richard Wood

  5. Institute for Regional Futures, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

    Richard Wood

  6. Environment Centre, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Richard Wood

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S.H. had the initial idea and framed the topic. All authors reviewed the literature and contributed to the discussion of content, writing and editing of the manuscript.

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Related links

CIESIN Center for International Earth Science Information Network (2018): https://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/gpw-v4-admin-unit-center-points-population-estimates-rev11

Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2022): https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction/overview

European Commission (2022): https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/bioeconomy/bioeconomy-circular-economy_en

S&P Global (2019): https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/documents/the-trucost-of-climate-investing.pdf

UNFCC Triple Planetary Crisis (2022): https://unfccc.int/blog/what-is-the-triple-planetary-crisis

WHO (2014): https://www.who.int/news/item/25-03-2014-7-million-premature-deaths-annually-linked-to-air-pollution

Glossary

Agent-based models

Computational models used for simulating (inter)actions of independent agents, for example to model consumer behaviour.

Background system

Represents technologies in the upstream or downstream chain of the technology or product system assessed.

Bioeconomy

Covers all sectors and systems that rely on biological resources, their functions and principles, and related products and services.

Circular bioeconomy

Aims at an increased use of biological resources, including organic waste, and the recycling of biological resources.

Circular economy

Targets resource efficiency by keeping materials in multiple loops, for example by reusing and recycling.

Drivers–pressure–state–impact–response framework

(DPSIR). Chain of causal links starting with drivers (human activities) through pressures (emissions) to states (physical, chemical and biological) and impacts on ecosystems and human health, to political responses.

Endpoints

Endpoint indicators are set at the end of an impact pathway. They have units that are comparable across impact categories within each area of protection, such as loss of global species richness for ecosystems.

Impact category

Class representing environmental issues of concern that are assessed in LCA.

Industrial ecology

The study of technological organisms, their use of resources, their potential environmental impacts, and the ways in which their interactions with the natural world could be restructured to enable sustainability.

Industrial symbiosis

Industrial symbiosis studies the exchange of waste materials and energy between industries to substitute conventional resources (materials, energy, water).

Integrated assessment models

(IAMs). Models (mostly long-term scenario models) that integrate models of the biophysical environment (in particular concerning climate impacts) with that of the economy and society to explore questions of policy.

Material flow analysis

(MFA). The analysis of material flows and stocks within a system. The term material includes specific substances, materials, and goods.

Midpoint indicators

These are set at intermediary steps along an impact pathway and are different for each impact category. They are only comparable within one impact category.

Multiregional input–output analysis

MRIO tables describe the monetary flows between economic sectors and regions, and they can be coupled with LCIA indicators to quantify environmental impacts of the global economy, supply chains and trade.

Planetary boundaries

Thresholds for biophysical processes considered crucial for the stability of Earth.

Process-based LCA

Process-based LCAs collect inventory data (material and energy inputs and outputs as well as emissions and resource consumptions) for each single process bottom-up (in contrast to MRIO).

Prospective LCA

LCA of a future system or scenario, whereby technology development (scaling and learning) and changes in the background production system are considered.

Rebound effect

Part of the success of a measure is offset by induced consumption (for example cost savings due to reduced consumption of products are spent on other goods and services with environmental impacts).

Risk assessment

Method to understand the magnitude of adverse health or environmental effect of a chemical.

Scope 3 emissions

All indirect emissions (except for indirect emissions from purchased energy, which are scope 2) that occur in the value chain of a company, including both upstream and downstream.

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Hellweg, S., Benetto, E., Huijbregts, M.A.J. et al. Life-cycle assessment to guide solutions for the triple planetary crisis. Nat Rev Earth Environ 4, 471–486 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00449-2

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