LCA targeted to your needs
 PRé
Consultants has over 15 years of experience in conducting the full range
of LCA’s. From large ISO compatible studies to screenings that take
less than a week.
We target our solutions to your
need and your budget. We prefer being intelligent and innovative rather
than making things unnecessary complex and expensive.
LCA is a model of the complex
real world. This means you must limit your model in an intelligent and
consistent way. Any study starts with a clear description of the objectives
and the scope, as well as a quick screening.
This screening shows you what
the important issues are, and what are the less important ones. Of course
you will need to invest most of your time in the important issues.
At PRé Consultants, we usually
advise you to start with a screening. You decide later, depending on
the results, if it is necessary to study some or all aspects in more
depth. In many cases, the screening tells you what you wanted to know.
Screening LCA
Nowadays, lots of data are readily available in LCA databases. Our
consultants have collected an internal dataset and a library that is
much larger than the data available in the commercial SimaPro databases.
Especially if your product systems includes commonly used materials
and processes, making a screening can be a matter of days, not weeks.
Monte Carlo techniques and sensitivity analysis are important elements
in a screening. Data in screenings are often uncertain, and some data
may be not completely representative. Changing assumptions in a sensitivity
analysis or propagating uncertainties in a Monte Carlo analysis can
tell us if the conclusion is stable, given the limitations that are
inherent in a limited screening.
While we are performing screenings we always ask ourselves if it is
necessary to know more for the stability of the conclusions, or whether
we already know enough to answer our client’s question.
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Full LCA studies
If you are interested in a robust answer for a specific question
and want to inform a broad group of stakeholders, you need a fully documented
ISO compatible study that is peer reviewed by an independent reviewer
or panel of reviewers.
In such a study, data collection and documentation is much more extended.
Peer reviewers and stakeholder need full transparency and a high level
of consistency.
It should be kept in mind though that even the largest and most detailed
LCA will always remain a model of a complex reality, and there will
always be data gaps, subjective choices and uncertainties to deal with.
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