PLANETS SSbD Training in Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (04.11.2025, online)

On 5 November 2025, the PLANETS consortium organised an internal training session on Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (eLCA). The session began with an introduction to the topic and went on to explain the different phases of eLCA in detail, starting with Goal & Scoping. Participants learned about different databases and their particularities, how to apply prospective LCA to earlier stages of innovation, and how to generate endpoints and midpoints from elementary flows. We also briefly discussed how different characterisation factors influence impact assessment, and learnt how to address uncertainty using sensitivity analysis. Participants performed an interactive exercise on building an inventory (LCI) on a specific example of paints.

Highlights of the workshop

The session was moderated by Martin Himly (PLUS), the leader of the training work package within PLANETS. He introduced the session by outlining its objectives, structure and background information. Thomas Henniquin (TNO) explained the four main phases of an eLCA, delving into each one: Goal & Scope, Life Cycle Inventory (LCI), Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), and Interpretation. The participants performed an interactive exercise on a specific example of paints for inventory (LCI) building, divided into break-out groups.

Thomas provided further insight into databases, multifunctionality and prospective LCA. Loelia Fohet (IPC) then introduced the concept of LCIA, including characterisation factors (CF), and led the attendees in a discussion about interpreting results as part of an interactive poll to gain experience in interpreting results. The final part of the training focused on dealing with uncertainty using sensitivity analysis, which is relevant for interpreting results.

Following PLANETS partners were involved in the preparation of this training: Thomas Hennequin (TNO), Carla Caldeira (SQO), Loelia Fohet (IPC), Laura Magnasco (RINA), Poornima Nagesh (RU), Stephanie Desrousseaux (CEA), Eva Hahn (Wacker), Beatriz Alfaro Serrano (BNN), and Martin Himly (PLUS) .

 Training Materials – In preparation

Building on the insights from this internal training, PLANETS has developed external training materials as an introduction to eLCA. These materials include:

• Presentation slides
• A pdf of the collaborative whiteboard of an exercise on inventory building
• Recording of the training. Additionally, recording of one of the break-out rooms (led by Laura Magnasco, RINA) 

All training materials are available in the PLANETS community on Zenodo under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, allowing for redistribution and reuse with proper credit to the creators. You can access them here, with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19472916.

Additionally, all recorded sessions can be viewed on the PLANETS YouTube channel.