What is Life Cycle Assessment starter and why should I choose it?
As you’ve landed on our website, you’re probably interested in how to make a life cycle assessment (LCA), or how to scale up your previous LCA work. You might’ve noticed your environmental performance and transparency could be better but feel unsure what to do next. Or maybe you’re feeling pressure from various stakeholders to provide clear data about your environmental impact. What are the fastest and most efficient steps to take? One of the best ways to get your first life cycle assessment done, or to scale up your current LCA capacity, is to use the LCA starter and the LCA training that we offer. We continuously source and train the next-generation LCA professionals for sustainability teams and consulting companies just like yours.
In this blog post, we will explain what the LCA starter and training are, how we do it, and why it is the perfect solution for you if you’re looking to have a life cycle assessment done. We will also provide you with the additional benefits of getting the LCA starter up and running in your company.
What is life cycle assessment starter?
The life cycle assessment starter is a new solution on the market. It provides you with a finished LCA for your company, service or product within 2 months by an LCA-trained intern. This is done with the support of our qualified professors from Harvard/ MIT and the University of Valencia, as well as through a business licence access to the life cycle assessment software Earthster.
The best LCA software
When carrying out an LCA, great software is key. Let us introduce: Earthster.
Earthster is probably the fastest and most user-friendly LCA software on the market, and USEEIO and Ecoinvent databases are naturally included. With its intuitive and innovative design and cloud-based access, Earthster allows you to retrieve your LCA data in real-time. You can request suppliers to provide you with their data and ultimately share the results with your customers whenever you like. The more transparent your company, services and products are, the more trustworthy you will appear to your stakeholders.
In-depth training and support by industry experts
LCA’s require software, knowledge and experience. As we’ve got our software covered by Earthster, this is where our skilled interns come in. We continuously interview and add more university students and recent graduates to our pool of potential interns. We think our interns are amazing and hope that you’ll think so too. We make sure to match our interns with your company, based on the intern’s personality and experience, as well as your company’s specific interests. We then start our two-week-long training program for our interns, where we teach them everything they’ll need to know about LCAs, how to execute them at companies and about the Earthster software.
This training program is led by industry-leading life cycle assessment experts Dr. Gregory Norris and Dr. David Collado-Ruiz. Dr. Norris has practised as an LCA professor at both Hardvard and MIT, and Dr. Collado-Ruiz is a former Ecoinnovation professor from Universidad Politecnica de Valencia. Together, with their years of experience with the subject, Dr. Norris and Dr. Collado-Ruiz are able to give in-depth insights and understanding of LCA as well as the software Earthster.
Reimagined internships
Once the interns have finished their 2 weeks of training - they’re ready to move on to the next step. This is where the fun really starts. The interns will now start building up the life cycle assessment at your company. In order to make sure our interns feel happy and supported, they will not only stay in touch with their fellow interns at other companies but will also be guided throughout the process by our experts. This allows us to make sure they also stay on track with the 2-month timeframe of producing an LCA for your company.
The intern's salary is not included in the cost of our service and software, and it is therefore up to you how much you decide to compensate your intern.
Once the 2 months are over, you will have an LCA specifically for your company, service or product, with minimum effort from your side. It does still require you to support your intern when needed, as you are the intern’s access point to the company data and processes. By guiding them the best you can, you will ensure that the intern is aligned with your expectations and goals, which will ultimately result in a successful project. Once the LCA is produced, you can now offer to hire the intern who has produced it for you..
“I would definitely recommend the LCA starter to others. We were happy with the skillset of our intern and the entire process was made super easy for us!”
Why is the life cycle assessment starter important?
There are many reasons why you may be looking to get an LCA done. It can be used for marketing purposes to benchmark yourself against the industry standard or competitors, to satisfy your stakeholders, for KPIs or even to correct current misconceptions about where your company could perform better. No matter what your motivation is, a life cycle assessment is often a big eye-opener and should be done by all companies who want a better understanding of their environmental impact.
Carrying out a life cycle assessment can be quite overwhelming, even if you’re actively working with environmental management on a regular basis. This is due to its complexity and the need for data and transparency on all levels of the supply chain. This is where a lot of companies get stuck as it not only takes a lot of time and effort but also knowledge and maybe even new software. The harder a problem is to solve - the more innovative the solution needs to be. That’s where Environmental Impacts Academy come in. We want to make the experience of getting an LCA done a positive and exciting one, with multiple accompanying benefits for you to enjoy.
Whether you are completely new to LCA or have already carried out an LCA in the past - we’re here to help you do even better. With us, you’ll be able to take your LCA capacity to a new level.
“We saw a considerable lack of LCA knowledgeable people in businesses. That is why we started to educate more LCA experts. We offer our customers LCA-educated talent together with the best available technology.” - Tanja Holm, co-founder of Environmental Impacts Academy
Additional benefits from using our LCA starter
By choosing our LCA starter and training, you will get more than just a life cycle assessment. You will also:
Acquire in-house LCA knowledge, without doing the training yourself
Make sure the intern is a good fit before deciding to offer them employment after the project
Get some needed new ideas and points of view into the company to make sure your company stays dynamic and innovative
Help your suppliers by suggesting to also use the LCA starter. This will enable them to step up their game in both transparency and overall environmental performance - which will reflect positively on your company
Still not convinced our LCA starter is the right choice for your company? Don’t only take our word for it, but also have a look at what our happy previous customers are saying:
“I only have good things to say about our intern, the process and the project. Good value for money.”
So now you can move on to the next step, content knowing what our LCA starter includes and how it will benefit you and your company. You will be able to get your personalised life cycle assessment done within 2 months using the best LCA software on the market, while also acquiring massive amounts of knowledge in-house instead of having to outsource these projects to others.
You will get to work with a driven LCA-trained intern who will bring new ideas, insights and results, and who you can offer to hire at the end of the project. You will not only get help from an educated intern but also from industry-leading experts, to ensure you will get the best LCA possible. Some of our customers even decided to enrol one of their current employees into our program, instead of choosing to work with an entirely new intern. This is also a great way to benefit from the LCA starter and build your own LCA capability.
Doing an LCA doesn’t have to be overwhelming, exhausting or time-consuming - as long as you have the right people, knowledge and software.
Don’t wait to get your LCA starter, get the ball rolling today!
