LCA 201 · The drivers

In LCA 101 you learned one method. In practice, nobody asks you for “an LCA”. They ask for an EPD for a tender, a carbon footprint for a customer, a CBAM declaration for customs, or a declaration under the Construction Products Regulation. These are the drivers: the reasons a company needs environmental data at all.

They look like four different subjects. Underneath, they share one way of thinking: define what you are measuring, draw a boundary, build up the inputs, apply factors, and check the result. Just as the same costing skills serve a quote, a budget and a make-or-buy decision, the same LCA skills serve every driver. What changes is the rulebook, and who reads the answer.

The drivers at a glance

Driver	What it asks of a company	Standard or method	Who in the company feels it
EPD (Environmental Product Declaration)	A verified, published LCA of a product, to fixed product category rules	ISO 14025; EN 15804+A2 and complementary PCRs for construction products	Sales and tenders, product and engineering, sustainability
CPR (Construction Products Regulation, (EU) 2024/3110)	Environmental performance in the product’s legal declaration, starting with climate change, product family by product family	The regulation, the harmonised technical specification for the product family, and a Commission calculation method linked to EN 15804	Product and engineering, regulatory and quality, sales; buyers and specifiers
CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, (EU) 2023/956)	Importers of certain goods declare their embedded emissions and pay for them with certificates	CBAM’s own embedded-emissions methodology, derived from the EU ETS. Not an LCA.	Purchasing, finance and planning, customs and trade compliance
PCF (product carbon footprint)	A climate-only footprint, usually cradle-to-gate, for a customer’s own footprint	ISO 14067:2018 or the GHG Protocol Product Standard, often with sector or customer rules	Sales and key accounts, sustainability, product and engineering

The lessons

#	Lesson	You’ll be able to
1	How EPDs work	Explain programme operators, PCRs, verification, EN 15804+A2 modules and indicators
2	How to read an EPD	Run a ten-point check on any EPD, and set up a fair comparison
3	The Construction Products Regulation	Explain how and when environmental declarations reach a product family, and what to do now
4	CBAM	Explain scope, dates, the 50-tonne threshold, embedded emissions, and what to ask suppliers for
5	Product carbon footprints	Answer a customer PCF request with the unit, boundary, method and data stated
6	Which standard applies?	Choose the right standard from what the result is for and who will read it

The regulatory lessons (CPR and CBAM) are dated. Both regulations changed in 2024 and 2025 and more changes are under discussion, so each lesson ends with its sources and the date they were last checked.

Before you start, finish LCA 101, or at least lessons 1, 4 and 8. When you want to put the drivers into practice with your own data, go on to LCA 202 · Data.