Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), also called life cycle analysis, is a holistic way to measure the impact of a product, service, or process on the environment during different life stages/cycles. Different parts of the product’s or process’ life cycle can affect the environment in many ways. 

LCA studies are guided by ISO 14040 & 44 and involve a complete list of inventory flow in each stage of the product’s life cycle, including materials, energy, emission, waste generated, etc. LCA can be conducted for different scopes, which are:

• Gate to gate – Focuses only on the manufacturing process
• Cradle to gate – It focuses on the extraction of raw materials from nature until they reach the manufacturing unit.
• Cradle to grave – From the extraction of raw materials to the product disposal

Conducting a Life Cycle Assessment of a product has many benefits. It helps improve product development in efficient policymaking. 

Steps of life cycle assessment

LCA is a standardised method that makes the assessment transparent and reliable, and as per the ISO standards, there are four main steps of LCA.

• Defining the goal
• Analysis of the inventory
• Assessing the impact 
• Interpreting the findings/assessment

Life Cycle Assessment of HabiNest, a prefab construction solution offered by Tata Steel Nest-In

HabiNest is a Light Gauge Steel Frame (LGSF) solution ideal for building residential buildings and industrial amenities. These buildings are constructed in one-third the time it takes to build a structure of the same size using conventional methods. 

Recently a LCA study was conducted on a HabiNest structure of classroom building. The total built area of the construction was approximately 2400 Sq. Ft which was compared with a conventional structure of a similar size. 

The total material used in HabiNest was about 192 tons, while for a traditional structure of similar size, it was 547 tons.