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What is LCA?

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluates the environmental impact of a product across its entire life cycle — from raw material extraction through manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life. Dcycle provides a visual, canvas-based LCA tool powered by the ecoinvent database. 
Raw Materials ──→ Manufacturing ──→ Distribution ──→ Use ──→ End of Life
     │                  │                 │            │           │
     ▼                  ▼                 ▼            ▼           ▼
  Extraction        Processing        Transport     Consumer    Disposal
  Energy use        Waste mgmt        Logistics     Energy      Recycling
  Transport         Emissions         Packaging     Maintenance Landfill
Dcycle’s LCA module is split into two main areas:

Resource Manager

Create and manage the materials, energy sources, waste streams, and processes that form the building blocks of your LCA. Dcycle automatically maps resources to ecoinvent emission factors.

LCA Portfolio

Build your product’s life cycle on a visual canvas. Connect material, process, transport, and distribution blocks to model the full supply chain and calculate environmental impacts.

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How It Works

1

Define your resources

Add raw materials, energy sources, waste, and processes to the Resource Manager — manually or via Excel bulk upload.
2

Wait for intelligent mapping

Dcycle matches each resource to the ecoinvent emission factor database. This takes 24-48 hours for new resources.
3

Build your LCA portfolio

Open the Portfolio canvas and create blocks (material, process, product, transport, distribution). Connect them to model the product life cycle.
4

Add resources to blocks

Assign your mapped resources to each block with the appropriate quantity and unit.
5

Calculate and download results

Run the impact calculation and download results across multiple environmental categories (climate change, acidification, eutrophication, and more).
Emission Factor DatabaseDcycle uses ecoinvent (versions 3.11 and 3.12), one of the most comprehensive life cycle inventory databases available. It covers thousands of processes across industries and geographies.

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Impact Categories

Dcycle calculates impacts across a wide range of environmental categories, including:
CategoryDescription
Climate ChangeGreenhouse gas emissions (CO2e)
AcidificationAcid rain potential (SO2e)
EutrophicationFreshwater, marine, and terrestrial nutrient enrichment
Ozone DepletionStratospheric ozone destruction potential
Water ScarcityFreshwater consumption and scarcity footprint
Land UseLand occupation and transformation impacts
Human ToxicityCarcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health effects
EcotoxicityFreshwater ecosystem toxicity
Particulate MatterFine particulate formation potential
Resource DepletionFossil fuel and mineral resource use

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Next Steps

Resource Manager

Start by creating your resources

LCA Portfolio

Build and calculate your LCA