Different lists of application areas for life cycle assessment are reviewed together with some suggestions for a typology of these application areas. It is concluded that the scope of a life cycle assessment is determined by the area of validity of the decision with respect to time, space, and interest groups affected. On this basis, six application areas are distinguished. It is further concluded that the application area has limited influence on the inventory analysis and impact assessment phases, although these may be influenced significantly by the decision-maker and the complexity of the trade-offs between the involved environmental impacts. The reporting format for a life cycle assessment depends on the socio-economic importance of the decision, the intended audience, and the time available for decision making.
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The paper’s typology centres on the validity of the decision: where and for how long it applies, and which interest groups it affects. These dimensions help define the scope before the analysis begins, rather than treating every life cycle assessment as if it served the same decision context.
Application area alone is not presented as the main driver of inventory or impact-assessment choices. The author instead notes that the decision-maker and the difficulty of balancing environmental impacts can have a stronger influence on those phases. The typology therefore separates the decision context from the analytical work while recognising that the two still interact.
Reporting should then be adapted to the importance of the decision, the intended audience and the time available. This makes communication part of applying LCA: a report needs to present results in a form that supports the decision at hand.
