It's Complicated: Corporate Sustainability and the Uneasiness of Life Cycle Assessment

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a technique and field of expertise aimed at modeling the complete ‘cradle-to-grave’ life of goods and services, as well as their multiple impacts on environmental and human well-being. Although not new, in recent years LCA has become a central tool in corporate and government initiatives to improve overall product sustainability. These initiatives show how corporate supply chains have become increasingly important sites and objects of knowledge production. But the production process is not straightforward. LCA practitioners must navigate complicated relationships with corporations that serve as both clients and sources of vital information. The challenges of generating knowledge deemed both credible and useful are compounded by the complexity, diversity and contingency of product life cycles, as well as by ongoing debates about exactly how product sustainability should be modeled and assessed. While some of these challenges are unique to LCA, others reflect tensions common to many fields that assess corporate conduct in order to improve it.