Looking to learn about life cycle thinking and systems thinking? Interested in learning how to calculate and interpret the environmental footprint of a product, service or technology?

This course is an introduction to life cycle assessment. You will learn the principles and concepts necessary to describe a value chain from cradle to grave, calculate an inventory of emissions and resource consumption, translate it into impact indicators and scale it to a functional unit according to the principles of ISO 14044 and international best practices.

This course was developed by the International Reference Center for Life Cycle Assessment (CIRAIG) in collaboration with the IPESE laboratory. It represents a collaborative effort between EPFL and Polytechnique universities.

With this course you will learn to:

• Consider the principles of a life cycle perspective
• Define the objectives of an LCA and lay the foundation for analyzing a product system
• Conduct an emissions and resource consumption inventory
• Describe the analytical framework for environmental impact assessment
• Interpret and compare the results of an environmental footprint profile