In the face of escalating climate challenges, sustainability leaders are under pressure to set and achieve decarbonization goals. The path to meeting these commitments is fraught with complex regulatory challenges and the pressing need for transparency and accountability in climate pledges.
FOR MORE CONTEXT
The business imperative of LCA
Life cycle assessment provides a detailed framework for understanding a product’s environmental impacts across its lifespan—from raw material extraction to disposal. LCA organizes emissions by the materials and processes used and helps identify production decisions with the greatest or least carbon impact. Unlike corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting, which categorizes emissions into Scopes 1, 2 and 3, LCA provides a granular view of emissions regardless of their origin within a company’s value chain.
Sustainability leaders today recognize the value of LCA in its ability to accurately and consistently quantify their company’s Scope 3 emissions. By leveraging LCA-based emissions factors such as Sphera’s Managed LCA Content, organizations can fill key information gaps when assessing their supply chain effects. This ensures that decarbonization initiatives target the most significant areas of impact.
LCA’s capability to identify emission hotspots and uncover opportunities for product-level improvements is another well-known advantage. These insights can be integrated into the company’s overall emissions strategy, allowing product-level gains to scale across the organization. In this way, LCA not only supports product differentiation, but also drives broader emissions reductions when aligned with the corporate carbon accounting and net-zero strategy.
THE BENEFITS
Creating a unified decarbonization strategy
To forge an actionable decarbonization pathway, sustainability leaders must harmonize their LCA-driven product decarbonization efforts with the overarching carbon strategy. This holistic view ensures strategic alignment across the organization.
The challenge lies in overcoming the siloed nature of current approaches, where corporate and product-level decarbonization initiatives often operate independently. Solely focusing on corporate carbon accounting without integrating product-level assessments can result in missed sustainability targets. Similarly, R&D and product teams must align their product carbon footprint initiatives with corporate decarbonization goals to ensure they focus on changes that benefit the whole organization. By aligning these efforts, sustainability leaders can create a cohesive framework that leverages the strengths of both LCA and corporate carbon accounting.
As companies recognize the need to reduce carbon emissions without causing new environmental issues, LCA also offers a way to evaluate a wide range of impacts at once. This comprehensive assessment helps prevent “burden shifting,” where solving one sustainability problem might unintentionally worsen another. This supports a more balanced and effective decarbonization strategy.
HOW SPHERA CAN HELP
Decarbonization led by experts, driven by data
Crafting a unified net-zero roadmap requires alignment between corporate and product sustainability teams, along with a nuanced understanding of LCA methodology. To drive impactful decarbonization, sustainability leaders must transcend organizational silos and forge a cohesive, strategic approach.
To fully harness the potential of LCA for decarbonization, companies can count on the trusted expertise of Sphera’s Sustainability Consultants. Our global team of experts in LCA, corporate carbon footprint, Scope 3, climate strategy and reporting helps organizations translate their sustainability commitments into real-world action. Sphera’s experts can act as an extension of a company’s sustainability team, providing guidance and support throughout every phase of the decarbonization journey.
Sphera’s Managed LCA Content provides a robust data foundation for reliable and fact-based corporate and product emissions evaluation. High-quality data reduces uncertainty and allows sustainability leaders to confidently track their decarbonization progress. With industry-specific, third-party-verified and annually updated emissions factors, Sphera empowers companies to meet regulatory requirements while providing the level of detail required for accurate sustainability assessments.
Utilizing Sphera’s LCA Software Solutions enables organizations to understand the environmental impacts of their entire product life cycle. By identifying hotspots and enabling fact-based decision-making, companies can improve their sustainability outcomes and ensure compliance with rapidly changing regulatory requirements.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Conclusion
Achieving decarbonization goals in today’s complex regulatory and business landscape requires more than just setting aspirational targets. It requires a strategic approach that combines LCA-driven product decarbonization efforts with corporate carbon accounting and net-zero strategies. By leveraging LCA, sustainability leaders can enhance Scope 3 estimates, gain actionable insights into environmental hotspots and drive innovation that results in meaningful emissions reductions.
Partnering with Sphera’s Sustainability Consultants equips organizations with the expertise, data and tools to integrate LCA into a comprehensive decarbonization strategy. By doing so, sustainability executives can ensure their organizations are well-prepared to meet accountability expectations and navigate the path toward a more sustainable future.
To explore how Sphera can support your company’s unique decarbonization journey, connect with our sustainability consulting team today.
