Glossary

LCA terms

Allocation: partitioning the inputs and outputs of a multi-output process between its products. See the ISO 14044 hierarchy.

Background system: processes the study owner doesn’t control (grid electricity, commodity materials), usually modelled with database data.

Bill of materials (BOM): the list of materials and parts in a product, with quantities. The starting point for both unit costing and LCA. See LCA 202 lesson 1.

Carbon footprint of a product (CFP): ISO’s name for a product carbon footprint. See PCF.

Characterisation factor: the number that converts an amount of an elementary flow into an impact indicator, such as 29.8 kg CO₂-eq per kg of fossil CH₄ (IPCC AR6 GWP₁₀₀).

Comparability check: checking that two results can fairly be compared before comparing them: same function or unit, same standard and version, same modules or boundary, both current. See LCA 201 lesson 2.

Comparative assertion: an environmental claim that one product is better than, or equal to, a competing product performing the same function. Public ones need a panel critical review under ISO 14044.

Cradle-to-gate: a boundary that covers everything from raw material extraction to the product leaving the factory gate, including suppliers’ emissions. The usual boundary for customer PCF requests and EN 15804 modules A1–A3.

Critical review: an independent check that a study meets ISO 14044 and that its interpretation is sound. ISO 14071 sets out the process and reviewer competencies.

Cut-off approach (recycling): a way of handling recycling in which material sent for recycling leaves the system with no burden and no credit, and the recycling burdens go to whoever uses the recycled material.

Cut-off criteria: rules for which small inputs may be excluded from a study.

Dataset: one entry in an LCI database describing a process or product, with its inputs and emissions. Running an impact method over it gives an emission factor.

Declared unit: the reference quantity used when a product’s function isn’t known (e.g. 1 tonne of cement). Common in EPDs.

Elementary flow: material or energy entering the system from nature, or leaving it to nature, without further human transformation.

Emission factor: the environmental impact of one unit of an input, such as kg CO₂-eq per kg of steel. The LCA equivalent of a unit price. Found in LCI databases.

End-user licence agreement (EULA): the contract that sets what you may do with a licensed database and with results calculated from it. Check it before sharing results or uploading data to an AI tool. See LCA 202 lesson 2.

Foreground system: processes the study owner controls or can collect primary data for.

Functional unit: the quantified performance of a product system, used as the reference for all results.

Gross and net quantity: the gross quantity is what you buy; the net quantity is what ends up in the product. The difference is scrap. Inventories, like standard costs, use the gross quantity.

GWP₁₀₀: Global Warming Potential over 100 years, relative to CO₂.

LCI: life cycle inventory. The list of elementary flows per functional unit.

LCI database: a collection of datasets for materials, energy, transport and waste, free or licensed. Examples: USLCI, Agribalyse, ecoinvent.

LCIA: life cycle impact assessment. Converting the inventory into impact indicators.

Market dataset: in some databases, a dataset for a product as supplied to a region, which may already include average transport and losses. Check before adding your own transport.

Partial carbon footprint: a carbon footprint covering only part of the life cycle, such as cradle-to-gate.

PCF (product carbon footprint): the greenhouse gas emissions and removals of a product over its life cycle or part of it, in kg CO₂-eq per unit. An LCA restricted to climate change. See LCA 201 lesson 5.

Primary data: data measured or recorded for the specific process: meter readings, production records, a supplier’s verified figures for the product you buy.

Primary data share: the share of a footprint that rests on primary data rather than database averages. Often asked for in customer PCF requests.

Proxy: a dataset used for an input when no good match exists, such as a generic chemical for a specialist adhesive. Always label it and test it in the sensitivity check.

Reference flow: the amount of product needed to deliver the functional unit.

Residual grid mix: the electricity mix of a grid after the renewable electricity sold to specific buyers with certificates has been taken out.

Screening footprint: a quick first footprint, mostly from database data and a simple scope, used to find hotspots and decide where better data is needed. Fine for internal decisions, not for public claims.

Secondary data: data from somewhere other than the specific process: a database, a study or an industry average.

System boundary: the set of unit processes included in the study.

System expansion / substitution: avoiding allocation by including the functions of co-products, often by crediting the product the co-product displaces.

System model: the set of methodological choices a database applies to all its datasets, especially for co-products and recycling. Datasets from different system models are not directly comparable.

Tonne-kilometre (tkm): the unit for freight transport: mass moved in tonnes multiplied by distance in kilometres. 5 kg over 500 km is 2.5 tkm.

Unit process: the smallest part of a product system for which input and output data are collected.

Yield: the share of purchased material that ends up in the product. An 80% yield means buying 1.25 kg for every 1 kg in the product.

EPD terms

Complementary PCR (c-PCR): product category rules for a specific product group that add to a core PCR. EN 16757 for concrete is an example.

Core PCR: the rules that apply to a whole sector. EN 15804 is the core PCR for construction products in Europe; ISO 21930 plays a similar role internationally.

ECO Platform: an association of European EPD programme operators that publishes shared verification guidelines for construction EPDs.

EN 15804+A2: EN 15804:2012+A2:2019, the European core PCR for construction products and services. Sets the modules and indicators of construction EPDs. See LCA 201 lesson 1.

EPD: Environmental Product Declaration. A verified report of LCA results following product category rules (ISO 14025).

GWP-GHG: a climate indicator some programmes (for example EPD International) report alongside the EN 15804+A2 indicators. Its definition is set by the programme; read the EPD’s footnote.

GWP-total, GWP-fossil, GWP-biogenic, GWP-luluc: the climate change indicators in EN 15804+A2: total, and its parts from fossil sources, from biogenic carbon, and from land use and land use change. The three parts add up to the total.

Module (EN 15804): one step of a construction product’s life cycle, labelled A1–A3 (product), A4–A5 (construction), B1–B7 (use), C1–C4 (end of life) and D (benefits and loads beyond the system boundary).

Module D: the net benefits or loads from materials or energy leaving the product system after its life, such as recycled steel replacing primary steel. Reported separately from the other modules.

ND (not declared): marks a module or indicator an EPD did not calculate. Not the same as zero.

PCR: Product Category Rules. The recipe an EPD must follow for a product group.

Programme operator: the organisation that runs an EPD programme: it publishes the rules and PCRs, organises verification, registers EPDs and keeps a public library.

Type III environmental declaration: the ISO 14025 name for an EPD: quantified, LCA-based, to predetermined rules, independently verified and run by a programme operator.

Verifier (EPD): the independent person or body that checks the LCA and the EPD against the standard, the PCR and the programme’s rules before publication.

Regulatory terms

Authorised CBAM declarant: the status an importer must hold to import CBAM goods into the EU above the threshold. Granted by the national competent authority.

Carbon leakage: production moving to countries with weaker climate rules, so emissions move rather than fall. CBAM exists to prevent it.

CBAM: the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, Regulation (EU) 2023/956. Puts a carbon price on the embedded emissions of certain imported goods. See LCA 201 lesson 4.

CBAM certificate: the unit an authorised CBAM declarant buys and surrenders to cover embedded emissions, priced from the EU ETS auction price.

CN code: the EU’s Combined Nomenclature code for classifying goods in customs. CBAM’s scope is defined by CN codes.

CPR: the EU Construction Products Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/3110. Sets the rules for placing construction products on the EU market, including environmental declarations. See LCA 201 lesson 3.

Delegated act and implementing act: two kinds of act the European Commission adopts under a regulation. Delegated acts supplement or amend parts of the regulation (for example, setting product requirements); implementing acts set out how it is applied uniformly (for example, making a harmonised standard mandatory).

Declaration of performance and conformity (DoPC): the manufacturer’s legal declaration under the new CPR of how a construction product performs, including, as product families come under the new rules, its environmental performance.

Default value (CBAM): a Commission-published embedded emissions value per good and country, used when verified actual data are not available. Carries a mark-up.

Digital product passport: a digital record of product information that travels with the product. The CPR introduces one for construction products.

Embedded emissions (CBAM): the greenhouse gases released in producing a good, calculated with CBAM’s own methodology. Direct emissions come from the production processes (including the heat and cooling they use); indirect emissions come from the electricity consumed, and count only for some goods.

Essential characteristic (CPR): a characteristic of a construction product that relates to the basic requirements for construction works, or one of the predetermined environmental characteristics in Annex II of the CPR.

EU ETS: the EU Emissions Trading System. EU producers of energy-intensive goods pay for their emissions by surrendering allowances. CBAM mirrors it for imports.

Free allocation: EU ETS allowances given free of charge to some EU producers. CBAM reduces the certificates an importer must surrender to reflect it, and the adjustment shrinks as free allocation is phased out.

Harmonised technical specification (CPR): a harmonised European standard or European assessment document that says how a product family’s essential characteristics are assessed. The CPR’s environmental declaration reaches a product family when a new one covers it.

Mark-up (CBAM): the percentage added to CBAM default values: 10% in 2026, 20% in 2027 and 30% from 2028 (1% for fertilisers).

National competent authority (CBAM): the authority in each Member State that grants the status of authorised CBAM declarant and oversees CBAM obligations.

PACT: the Partnership for Carbon Transparency, hosted by WBCSD. Publishes a methodology and technical specifications for calculating and exchanging cradle-to-gate PCFs between companies.

Precursor (CBAM): a CBAM good used to make another CBAM good, such as clinker in cement. Its embedded emissions are added to the final good’s.

Product family (CPR): a group of construction products listed in Annex VII of the CPR, such as cement or structural metallic products. New CPR rules are rolled out family by family.

Simple and complex goods (CBAM): simple goods are made from inputs treated as having zero embedded emissions; complex goods include the embedded emissions of their precursors.

Single mass-based threshold (CBAM): the 50-tonne annual limit, across iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers and cement combined, below which an importer is exempt from CBAM. Does not apply to electricity or hydrogen.

Standardisation request: the Commission’s formal request to a European standards body (such as CEN) to draft harmonised standards for a product family.

Working plan (CPR): the Commission’s plan setting the order and schedule in which product families get new harmonised technical specifications. A plan, not a legal deadline.

AI assistant terms

AI assistant: a chat-based AI tool such as Claude, Claude Cowork or ChatGPT that can read your documents, run calculations and draft analysis.

Checker’s list: the list at the end of every learnLCA skill’s output naming the specific things a person must verify before the result is used.

Evidence rules: the rules every learnLCA skill follows so that its output can be checked: every number cites its source, arithmetic is done with a tool or shown step by step, missing data is flagged rather than guessed, and methodological choices are confirmed by you.

Skill description: the short text at the top of a skill that says what it does and when to use it (and when not to). The AI assistant reads it to decide when to load the skill.

Skill: a packaged set of instructions (and sometimes reference files) that you install in your AI assistant so it carries out a particular task the same way every time, such as reading an EPD. See the Skills class.