Background on LCA
Technique evaluates the environmental impacts of products and services on a cradle-to-grave basis
A comprehensive set of indicators are evaluated for all major environmental issues: e.g. global climate change, acidification, eutrophication, ecotoxic effects.
Indicators don’t measure impacts directly, but calculate indicators that are believed to correlate to those impacts.
LCA practitioners typically borrow their models from other disciplines, e.g. using radiative forcing factors developed by IPCC for global climate change