If your company is interested in sustainability, a life cycle assessment of your packaging is a meaningful place to start. An LCA identifies, quantifies, and assesses sources of environmental impact throughout a product’s life cycle. It examines all the activities involved with making, using, and disposing of a product. This tool can help you compare the environmental impact of different packaging products and determine which option makes the most sense.
An LCA helps prioritize how to make improvements on processes or products. An LCA of packaging takes into account the following criteria:

• Supply of raw materials for all packaging components
  • Use of the packaging (including the full supply chain from product factory to end user)
  • Disposal of the packaging after use

LCA is the determination of a package’s impact on the environment throughout its lifetime from start to finish. It aims to quantify the environmental impacts that arise from inputs and outputs, such as energy use or air emissions, over a product’s entire life cycle to assist consumers in making decisions that will benefit the environment.

5 steps of a product lifecycle are:
1. Raw material Extraction
2. Manufacturing & Processing
3. Transportation
4. Usage and Retail
5. Waste Disposal

4 stages of lifecycle assessment are:
1. Goal and scope definition
2. Life cycle inventory analysis
3. Life cycle impact assessment
4. Interpretation of the results