Skills class
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Your own assistant knows your role, your industry and your products. Pick a concept and it opens a ready-made prompt that asks for an explanation with examples from your world. The prompt tells the assistant not to invent emission factors or dates, and to finish with a question to check you understood.
- AI skills for LCA workClaude (opens a new tab): explain AI skills for LCA workChatGPT (opens a new tab): explain AI skills for LCA work
“Copy prompt” works with any assistant, such as Gemini, Microsoft Copilot or your company’s own. Nothing is sent anywhere until you choose to.
An AI assistant can now draft a lot of environmental work: read an EPD, turn a bill of materials into a first carbon footprint, check a supplier’s reply against a checklist. What it can’t do is take responsibility for the answer. That stays with you.
This class teaches a way of working where the assistant drafts, every number is traced to a source, and you check. It comes with six free skills: short instruction packages you install in the assistant you already use, so it follows the same careful procedure every time. Then it shows you how to write your own for your team.
The lessons
Section titled “The lessons”- Check, don’t write: the new way of working, and what the human still owns.
- What a skill is: the parts of a skill, how it gets picked up, and where skills run.
- Install a skill: install
epd-readerand do a first run with a fictional EPD. - Build your own: write a skill for your team from our template, with test cases.
- Skills by role: purchasing, finance, engineering, sales, sustainability and reviewers.
- Checking AI output: the checker’s job, common failure modes, spot-checking at scale.
You don’t need to write code for any of it. If you can write clear instructions for a new colleague, you can write a skill.
The skills cabinet
Section titled “The skills cabinet”Every skill is free. Each download is a zip containing the skill (SKILL.md), a version for
ChatGPT (gpt-instructions.md), a README with install steps, reference checklists, and test
cases with fictional sample files.
| Skill | What it does | Who it’s for | Driver | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| epd-reader | Reads one EPD and returns a page-referenced summary with flags (expired, modules missing, not EN 15804+A2) | Anyone who receives EPDs | EPDs | epd-reader.zip |
| bom-carbon-screening | Turns a bill of materials into a screening carbon footprint with a contribution table, hotspots and missing data, using only factors you supply or point to | Planning, finance, engineering, sustainability | Product carbon footprints | bom-carbon-screening.zip |
| supplier-epd-compare | Checks whether supplier EPDs can be compared, refuses to rank them if not, then compares with caveats | Purchasing, specifiers, tender teams | EPDs in purchasing | supplier-epd-compare.zip |
| cbam-data-request | Screens imports for possible CBAM scope from CN codes you confirm, drafts the supplier data request and checks the replies | EU importers: purchasing, customs, compliance | CBAM, Regulation (EU) 2023/956 | cbam-data-request.zip |
| cpr-readiness | Inventories a manufacturer’s EPDs and data against the CPR’s environmental characteristics and gives a gap list | Construction product manufacturers | CPR, Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 | cpr-readiness.zip |
| lca-report-review | Reviews an LCA or EPD background report against ISO 14044 reporting items and EN 15804 key checks, with a findings table and page references | Reviewers, practitioners, sustainability teams | EPDs and LCA studies | lca-report-review.zip |
Download all six (learnlca-skills.zip)
The bundle is one zip with a folder per skill. Claude expects one skill per zip, so for Claude use the individual downloads above.
Building your own? Download the blank skill-template.zip and follow lesson 4.
Where they run
Section titled “Where they run”| Assistant | How you add a skill | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| Claude (claude.ai) | Upload the zip as a custom skill | Code execution turned on; plans are listed on Claude’s help page |
| Claude Cowork | Add it from Customize | A paid Claude plan; Cowork runs in the desktop app |
| Claude Code | Put the folder in your skills folder | Claude Code installed |
| ChatGPT | As a ChatGPT skill (Business, Enterprise, Edu), or paste gpt-instructions.md into a Project on any plan |
Check OpenAI’s help pages for your plan |
Lesson 3 walks through each one.
What you should bring
Section titled “What you should bring”The skills work with what you already have: spreadsheets, PDFs, emails. The one thing they can’t supply is judgement about method, which is why the school starts with LCA 101. If you haven’t done it, the lessons on goal and scope and interpretation are the most useful preparation for checking AI output.
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