Understand Your Environmental Impact at Every Stage with Life Cycle Assessments. From raw materials through to disposal, we help you quantify and reduce the full environmental impact of your buildings and operations.
Life Cycle Assessment: Measuring Environmental Impact and Supporting Sustainable Decisions
At Lawler Sustainability we support clients in understanding and reducing the full environmental impact of their buildings through expert Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Our LCA services help identify carbon hotspots, support ESG reporting, and contribute to compliance with EU regulations and green building certifications, giving commercial property owners and developers the insight needed to make smarter, more sustainable decisions.
What is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)?
Life Cycle Assessment is a method used to measure the environmental impact of a product, service or building across its entire life span. This includes stages such as material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, and disposal.
LCA helps businesses understand the full carbon and resource footprint of what they produce or manage. It is based on internationally recognised standards such as ISO 14040 and ISO 14044.
Why LCA Matters for ESG and Sustainability
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly essential for businesses looking to meet their environmental targets, comply with regulations, and build credibility through transparent sustainability reporting. By assessing the full environmental impact of a building, product or service across its entire lifespan, LCA enables more informed decisions and supports a wide range of ESG and compliance objectives.
- Supports Scope 3 emissions reporting
LCA provides data critical to understanding indirect emissions that occur across the value chain, which are often the largest and most challenging part of an organisation’s carbon footprint. Accurate Scope 3 insights are now a core requirement in many ESG frameworks. - Required for green building certifications
LCA is a key component in achieving certification through leading green building standards such as LEED, BREEAM and the Home Performance Index. These certifications increasingly reward projects that demonstrate low embodied carbon and responsible material choices. - Aligns with EU regulations and reporting requirements
From the EU Taxonomy to the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), European legislation is placing greater emphasis on the measurement and disclosure of lifecycle impacts. LCA ensures your projects and assets remain aligned with these evolving expectations. - Reveals opportunities to reduce carbon through better design
LCA highlights carbon-intensive materials and processes, allowing project teams to reduce emissions early through smarter design, specification and procurement choices. This proactive approach is both environmentally responsible and financially strategic. - Strengthens ESG and sustainability reporting
With pressure growing from investors, regulators and customers, clear and quantifiable environmental data is now a vital part of ESG performance. LCA supports robust disclosures and helps demonstrate commitment to science-based targets and decarbonisation strategies.
Our Approach
Our approach to undertaking a Life Cycle Assessment in ESG involves a thorough evaluation of a product or process’ environmental impacts throughout its entire lifespan. Our LCA services cover the full lifecycle stages, from raw material extraction to disposal or recycling, aligned with the A1 to C4 modules.
This comprehensive assessment supports a range of needs, including tender submissions, informed design decisions and compliance with leading sustainability frameworks such as EU Level(s), LEED, BREEAM and Green Public Procurement.
By quantifying environmental impacts with precision, we provide the data and insights needed to guide more sustainable choices and reduce overall environmental footprint. Through accurate data collection, stakeholder engagement and transparent reporting, our Life Cycle Assessment approach empowers organisations to build more sustainably, improve resource efficiency and strengthen their ESG performance.
Our LCA Services Include:
- Embodied Carbon Reduction Strategy
- Material and Design Comparison Studies
- WLCAs aligned to EU Level(s)
- EPD Data Integration
- RIBA Stage-Based Reporting
- Pre-Demolition Carbon Audits
- Support for SBTi and Corporate Net-Zero Targets
Example of deliverables
Why Choose Lawler for Your LCA?
Choosing the right partner for Life Cycle Assessment is crucial to ensure accurate, reliable, and actionable insights. At Lawler Sustainability, we combine deep technical expertise with a practical understanding of the commercial building sector in Ireland. Our team is fully certified and experienced in delivering LCAs that not only meet international standards but also align with your broader ESG goals. We focus on providing clear, meaningful results that help you reduce carbon, comply with regulations, and make confident, sustainable decisions.
What we bring to the table:
- Powered by One Click LCA: The world’s leading construction carbon software enables us to deliver fast, robust, and regulation-ready assessments.
- Fully Compliant: We align with global standards including EN 15978, ISO 14040/44, Level(s), and national frameworks such as the Irish NZEB and Climate Action Plan.
- Design Decision Support: Our three-scenario modelling (Baseline, Average Improvement, Optimised) identifies carbon hotspots and cost-effective reduction strategies.
- End-to-End Service: From early-stage carbon assessments (Stages A1–A3) to full Whole Life Cycle Assessments (A1–C4 + D), we help teams track, reduce, and report emissions across the project lifecycle.
- Cross-Certification Expertise: We integrate LCA seamlessly into your LEED, BREEAM, and EU Taxonomy reporting frameworks.
- Visual + Board-Ready Outputs: Our reports include powerful visuals, benchmark comparisons, and actionable next steps to support stakeholder buy-in.
Recent Achievements:
- 625kgCO₂/m² target achieved for an Irish Department of Education school project.
- Scenario-based analysis led to 36% embodied carbon savings on a 12,000m² logistics hub.
- Integration of LCA into CSRD reports for pan-European clients using Scope 3 insights.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What types of projects can benefit from LCA?
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can benefit a wide range of projects across various sectors, especially those focused on reducing environmental impact and improving sustainability. Typical projects that benefit from LCA include:
- Commercial and residential building developments seeking to minimise embodied carbon and support green building certifications such as LEED or BREEAM.
- Renovation and retrofit projects aiming to assess the environmental impact of different materials and design options before implementation.
- Manufacturing and product design where understanding the full environmental footprint of materials and processes helps drive more sustainable choices.
- Infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, and utilities that want to evaluate long-term environmental impacts.
- Corporate sustainability programmes that require comprehensive data for Scope 3 emissions reporting and ESG disclosures.
- Public sector projects needing to comply with evolving EU regulations around sustainability and carbon reporting.
In essence, any project where the goal is to understand and reduce environmental impact throughout its full life cycle can gain valuable insights from an LCA.
2. How long does an LCA typically take?
The duration of a Life Cycle Assessment typically ranges from two to eight weeks, depending on the complexity of the project, the availability of data and the level of detail required. Simpler assessments for single products or early design stages can be completed quickly, while more detailed studies for buildings or large systems may take longer to ensure accuracy and alignment with certification requirements.
3. What data do we need to provide?
To carry out a Life Cycle Assessment, we typically need data on materials used, quantities, manufacturing processes, energy and water consumption, transport distances and modes, and end-of-life disposal or recycling methods. The more detailed and project-specific the data, the more accurate and meaningful the results will be. If some information is unavailable, we can use industry averages or verified databases to fill gaps.
4. What certifications can LCA support?
Life Cycle Assessment can support certifications such as BREEAM, LEED, EU Level(s), Green Public Procurement (GPP), and other sustainability frameworks that require evidence of environmental impact reduction.
5. What is the first step?
The first step is to get in touch with us. We begin every Life Cycle Assessment by understanding your specific needs, whether you are targeting regulatory compliance, tender support or early-stage design guidance. During an initial consultation, we will discuss your goals, define the product or system to be assessed and outline the appropriate scope and boundaries for the study. This ensures the assessment is tailored, accurate and aligned with your ESG and sustainability priorities. From there, we guide you through each stage of the process with clear communication and expert support.
Ready to take a smarter, more sustainable approach to your projects? Get in touch with our team today to start your Life Cycle Assessment.
Request a Fee Proposal Now
Simply fill in the form below and one of our trusted LCA Experts will provide you with a written fee proposal for your request.
