The life cycle impact assessment result (LCIA result) represents the potential environmental Impacts of a Product system expressed in amounts of one or more Impact category indicators. This result forms a crucial component of Life Cycle Assessment, translating the environmental flows documented in the inventory phase into meaningful indicators of potential environmental consequences.
According to ISO 14040, Life Cycle Impact Assessment is the phase of LCA aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude and significance of the potential environmental impacts for a product system throughout the life cycle of the product. The LCIA result is the quantified output of this phase, presenting the environmental performance of the product system across various impact categories such as climate change, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity, and resource depletion.
The LCIA result provides these potential impacts in standardised units that correspond to specific impact category indicators. For instance, climate change impacts might be expressed in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent, whilst acidification might be measured in moles of hydrogen ion equivalent. Each indicator represents a quantifiable measure of the environmental endpoint affected by the system being studied.
The result enables practitioners to identify environmental hotspots within a product system, compare alternative products or processes, and support decision-making towards more sustainable options. It builds upon the life cycle inventory analysis result by applying characterisation models that link inventory flows to their potential environmental consequences.
This concept is also known by several synonymous terms: product footprint, environmental profile, and eco-balance. Whilst these terms are used interchangeably, they all refer to the same fundamental output: the aggregated, characterised environmental impacts of a product system across its entire life cycle.
