International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook: Review schemes for Life Cycle Assessment

Quality and consistency of life cycle based decision support are essential in public policy and business context. Those can and should be supported by ‘critical review’ of underlying data and of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies themselves. A review assesses whether a LCA study or related data set meets pre-defined requirements. A review can help avoiding errors, ensuring that all options or method requirements have been appropriately taken into account, and last but not least increasing acceptance by stakeholders. Whilst requiring efforts, failing to perform a thorough review can cost significantly more in the long term than you initially save. The principle requirements for reviews are briefly addressed in the ISO 14040 series. While other LCA-based standards define some review requirements in more detail, information on how to conduct the reviews or what qualifications are required from reviewers is scarce. Therefore, more specific requirements and guidance on reviewing Life Cycle Inventory and Life Cycle Assessment studies are provided in the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook. Distinctions are made for the necessary level of review depending on the application context through a set of review schemes for 12 different cases. Differentiations are made with respect to the intended audience of the study, the complexity and broadness of the assessment, and the necessary type of stakeholder involvement. The scope of review (“what”) and the method of review that shall be used to verify the fulfillment of the requirements (“how”) are specified in the ILCD Handbook. For how to do the review examples are provided, e.g. evidence collection by means of available documentation, cross-checks, verification and review of data source, calculations. More details will be provided in the document “Review scope, methods and documentation for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)” that currently is under development. Last but not least the review can be only as good as the reviewers. Therefore, the ILCD Handbook also provides requirements on the necessary qualifications of reviewers. For the ILCD Data Network, initially somewhat reduced "entry-level" requirements have been defined. All these ILCD review requirements conform to the LCA-related ISO standards.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen