A service is a Product without mass. Unlike tangible goods that have physical substance and can be weighed or measured in mass units, services represent intangible products that deliver value or utility without a physical form.
In Life Cycle Assessment, the distinction between goods and services is important for understanding material and energy flows within product systems. Whilst goods are tangible products with mass properties, services encompass a wide range of intangible offerings such as transportation, education, healthcare, consulting, maintenance, and digital services. Although services themselves have no mass, the activities that provide them typically do involve material and energy consumption, infrastructure use, and environmental impacts.
According to ISO 14040, a product is defined as any output with positive market or non-market value. Services fall within this definition as products that deliver utility to users or economic actors. The category of "product" in LCA terminology therefore encompasses both tangible goods and intangible services, which aligns with how the term "good" is sometimes used in economics to cover both categories.
Even though a service has no mass, it remains an important output in LCA studies. Service activities can be modelled within product systems, and their life cycle impacts can be assessed by accounting for the material inputs, energy consumption, emissions, and other exchanges associated with delivering the service. For example, a transportation service involves fuel consumption and vehicle infrastructure, whilst a digital service requires data centre operations and network infrastructure.
Understanding services as products without mass helps practitioners correctly categorise activity outputs and properly model the exchanges and impacts associated with service provision throughout product life cycles.
