News

From LCC to LCSA – a new course

October 28, 2022 by ILCA

This week we introduce a new course, which represents the union of several of our most successful and sought-after courses:

  • Advanced quantitative Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment – 3 pillars, 6 capitals, 17 SDGs,
  • Economic tools in LCA – Life cycle costing, external costs and cost-benefit analysis,
  • Social Life Cycle Assessment.

The new course: ‘From LCC to LCSA – The whole journey in one week’ is a condensation of the curriculum, but also aims to establish a stronger connection between the individual themes by allowing the participants to apply their learning effectively to one case that runs through the week-long course. Expressed in a ‘formula’: Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) = Life Cycle Costing (LCC) + Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in its most comprehensive form, including economic, social, and ecosystem impacts.

This means that we no longer intend to offer the three ‘old’ courses. Indirectly this new course also contains some of the aspects taught in our introductory course on Managing the LCIA (Impact Assessment) Phase of LCA, which we are also now taking down from our running catalogue of courses. The advanced LCIA course, however, with its deep dive into the modelling aspects involved in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase of LCA studies is still on our list of suggested courses. See all course examples here: https://ilca.es/courses/courses/

How to ensure a seat on a future course

April 28, 2022 by Inger Weidema

We have recently held a couple of courses that were ‘sold out’ within few days after announcing the course, since we run with a rather small number of participants. Annoying for those that had their mind set on a specific theme.

Here is how to be the first to know when a new course becomes available:

Explore the list of ‘Examples of course plans’ on our courses on-site page to find what might interest you. Write to the course secretary, Peter Zacho Søgaard at: Peter@ilca.es and state your specific interests.

We keep lists of interested participants and will write directly to you whenever a course becomes available. We also use these lists to assess the interests from the LCA community and the demand will to some extent be reflected in the courses we offer.

The International Life Cycle Academy is an association of sustainability assessment professionals from all over the globe, working together to provide high-quality training opportunities in quantitative sustainability assessment. As an NGO we are dependent on teachers that have many other commitments in their positions at various Universities.

New IO and hybrid course

November 27, 2019 by ILCA

The ideal X-mas present for you or a friend?

Today the International Life Cycle Academy presents a totally updated March 2020 edition of one of our long-running successes – the IO and hybrid course.

The course has been turned into a suite of two courses with 2 days for the basics, eg. for those who just want to use IO/hybrid in SimaPro – while the subsequent 3 days is for those who want the more advanced practical skills under their belt, such as building and modifying an IO-LCA databases (incl. integration of physical flows and hybridising). Read more: https://ilca.es/courses/courses/

Review of three recent textbooks on LCA

October 11, 2019 by ILCA

The ILCA Academy members strive to review and recommend available teaching materials. With the aim of a stringent approach a set of criteria for a good beginner’s LCA textbook has therefore been developed.

These criteria have been used to review three recent textbooks on LCA:

  • Jolliet O, Saadé-Sbeih M, Shaked S, Jolliet A, Crettaz P. (2016). Environmental Life Cycle Assessment. Boca Raton: CRC Press
  • Matthews H S, Hendrickson C T, Matthews D H. (2016): Life Cycle Assessment: Quantitative Approaches for Decisions That Matter – lcatextbook.com
  • Hauschild M Z, Rosenbaum R K, Olsen S I (Eds.). (2018). Life Cycle Assessment: Theory and Practice. Heidelberg:Springer. (link)

A summary of the first part of the review has now been published in Journal of Industrial Ecology. For each of these three, more detailed comments are available in the following files:

Review details Jolliet
Review details Matthews
Review details Hauschild