Significance of decision-making for LCA methodology

Decision-making is central to life cycle assessment (LCA), both in the sense that LCA may be used as decision support and in the sense that different methodological choices in LCA are relevant to different applications. This latter issue is pursued in this paper: i.e., how the decision-making context, and thus goal definition, may be used to guide methodological choices in LCA. A distinction is made between a retrospective or accounting perspective and a prospective perspective, where the consequences of alternative actions are investigated. This has significant implications for LCA guidelines, including the standard on LCA compiled by the International Standardization Organization (ISO).