Eco-LCA: A tool for quantifying the role of ecological resources in LCA

The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) has highlighted the fast depletion of ecosystem services over the past 50 years and has identified their crucial role in human well-being. This emphasizes the need of accounting for ecosystem goods and services in life cycle of products and processes. Despite the availability of numerous Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) techniques, most methods only account for a handful of ecosystem services. Furthermore, methods for interpreting and aggregating these services are also needed. The framework of Ecologically-Based Life Cycle Assessment (Eco-LCA) can overcome these challenges, and a software tool for this approach has been developed. This tool is based on the 1997 U.S. economic inputoutput model, and can account for many provisioning services, and some regulating and supporting services. The web-based Eco-LCA tool is an easy and quick way of implementing the methodology. This article highlights the key features of the Eco-LCA tool and the kind of results it can provide, via an illustrative case study.