This presentation provides a very brief introduction to ACLCA and is provided by the Outreach Committee of ACLCA.
Abstract 87: This session will cover the fundamentals of carbon accounting according to the GHG Protocol and relate the practice to drivers companies should know, both regulatory and voluntary. Two hands on exercises will be included to give attendees a direct introduction to the accounting process and direct considerations related to primary data, emissions factors and unit conversions.

Most LCA studies include some sort of comparison, but some are benign scenario analyses within a single product LCA report. How do you know if your study qualifies as a "comparative assertion" according to ISO 14044, when the standard can be unclear? What are the extra steps and resources required for comparative assertion studies? We will walk you through the tell-tale signs and then help you prepare for next steps if you are working on a comparative assertion. Learn about the data quality assessment, sensitivity analyses, and uncertainty analyses required in a comparative assertion and leave with a comprehensive checklist. Many people get to the end of their LCA, only to find out that they need to complete many more steps and spend more money before having it certified as an ISO-compliant report suitable for marketing. Don't let that be you! Get ahead of the game so your next LCA will get to the marketing step quicker.

What can you actually say about your product's environmental performance -- and what opens you up to legal or regulatory risk? This session covers the FTC Green Guides, the EU Green Claims Directive, and how LCA-backed claims are your best protection. Essential for marketing, legal, and sustainability teams.

Environmental Product Declarations are increasingly required in construction specs, government procurement, and supply chain due diligence. This session explains what EPDs are, how they are created, how to read them, and what to require of your suppliers -- no LCA background needed.

Your value chain is where the biggest emissions are -- and where the data is hardest to get. This session shows how LCA is the methodology that makes Scope 3 credible, auditable, and defensible across your supply chain. Whether you're responding to customer questionnaires, investor pressure, or preparing for mandatory disclosure, this session gives you a practical framework for where to start, what data you actually need, and how to make progress without waiting for perfection.

LCA doesn't happen in a vacuum -- it happens inside a framework of international standards that define what counts, what gets measured, and what claims you can make. This session cuts through the alphabet soup -- ISO 14040/14044, ISO 14025, ISO 14067, EN 15804, and more -- explaining what each standard does, why it matters to your organization, and what's changing right now. The standards landscape is moving faster than it has in decades. This session ensures you understand the rules of the game -- and why they matter whether you're commissioning an LCA, pursuing an EPD, or responding to a procurement requirement.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) have become essential tools for quantifying and communicating the environmental impacts of products across global supply chains. As the use of EPDs expands in regulatory programs, green building systems, the credibility and consistency of both the underlying LCA studies and published EPDs have become increasingly important. Independent verification and critical review therefore play a central role in ensuring that studies are scientifically robust, transparent, reproducible, and compliant with applicable standards and Product Category Rules (PCRs). This session aims to provide an overview of the methodology, principles, and current practices associated with LCA critical review and EPD verification.

Particular focus will be placed on key aspects of the verification process, including reviewer competency, consistency in interpretation of PCR requirements, documentation quality, resource limitations, and other current challenges facing reviewers and verifiers. The session will also highlight current best practices and practical recommendations aimed at improving consistency, transparency, efficiency, and overall quality in LCA critical review and EPD verification processes.

The session will further examine current practices in the United States and Europe. Key differences in EPD verification approaches, and verification methodologies, including tool-based verification practices, will be discussed, along with the emerging role of automation and AI-supported verification approaches. Overall, this session aims to bring together different perspectives from the panel to provide a concise overview of best practices, methodological considerations, current challenges, and emerging trends in LCA critical review and EPD verification to support practitioners, reviewers, program operators, and stakeholders seeking credible environmental reporting.

Artificial intelligence is transforming how LCA data is collected, modeled, and communicated. This session separates the signal from the noise -- covering where AI is genuinely accelerating LCA practice, where caution is warranted, and what it means for professionals who buy and use LCA results.

This session is for the professionals who will hire, direct, and review LCA work -- not do it themselves. What is a realistic scope and timeline? What questions should you ask a consultant? How do you evaluate the quality of a study? What are the red flags? A practical playbook for LCA buyers.

Long-range sustainability planning for schools and public institutions typically produces comprehensive technical reports that are inaccessible to most community stakeholders. This session presents a case study from Bainbridge Island School District, where a bespoke interactive planning dashboard was developed to transform a 100+ page Long-Range Facilities Plan and Sustainability Framework into a dynamic, participatory community experience.
The dashboard was designed around a core participatory planning methodology: rather than presenting fixed outcomes, users, students, parents, teachers, and community members, can select and toggle sustainability actions (energy retrofits, water conservation measures, solar programs) for individual school buildings, adjust implementation timelines, and instantly visualize projected outcomes including carbon emission reductions, energy savings, and water conservation over a 20, 25 year horizon. The tool also incorporates a large language model (LLM) assistant trained on the district's sustainability plan, enabling users to ask natural-language questions and receive plain-language responses.
This session will walk attendees through the dashboard's design principles, the underlying LCA and sustainability modeling that powers the scenario engine, and the community engagement strategy that positioned digital interaction as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional in-person workshops. Qualitative feedback from community stakeholders indicates that the interactive format improved comprehension of long-term trade-offs and increased enthusiasm for district sustainability commitments.
Attendees will leave with a practical framework for applying similar tools in their own institutional or community planning contexts, including guidance on integrating LCA-informed metrics into public-facing, interactive formats.

Learning Outcomes
-Apply LCA metrics in interactive public-facing tools, Attendees will understand how to translate environmental performance indicators (carbon, energy, water) derived from life cycle thinking into accessible scenario-modeling interfaces for non-technical audiences.
-Design participatory digital engagement strategies, Attendees will be able to describe a hybrid engagement model that combines interactive digital tools with in-person workshops to deepen community understanding of and commitment to long-range sustainability plans.
-Evaluate AI-assisted communication for complex sustainability documents, Attendees will understand how large language models can be embedded in planning tools to make technical sustainability frameworks searchable and comprehensible to the general public.

Organizations have shown an increased interest in adopting LCA automation solutions in the last few years. This trend is driven by growing reporting requirements, ambitious decarbonization targets, and the utility of LCAs in providing actionable insights for sustainability strategies. These solutions range from automation at the enterprise-level to using online AI-based calculators.

LCA automation is a promising avenue for scaling LCA efforts which can enable organizations to generate LCAs and carbon footprints in large volumes, covering products in the hundreds and thousands while using the most up-to-date data, something unattainable if performing one LCA at a time. While LCA automation is a powerful approach, for the results to be meaningful at a large scale, it requires a certain level of data maturity. For organizations embarking on the journey to automate LCAs, there are key preparatory steps to consider.

One of the main challenges to address when preparing for automation is data collection and integration at-scale as data is usually dispersed across several different source systems, in different formats, and with varying update frequencies. Another challenge is the number of standards and industry guidelines that organizations may be subjected to, each requiring specific calculation procedures and data. While LCA automation is intended to solve the resource problem in LCAs, it is important to consider the resources required to implement and maintain a solution capable of scaling LCAs across an organization.

Ensuring scientific robustness, transparency, and auditability is critical when scaling LCAs. Organizations need to fully understand the requirements in LCA automation or risk loss of time and investments due to failed implementation that may result in unintended greenwashing due to inaccurate claims. The purpose of this session is to explore the key challenges of LCA automation by sharing case studies and industry insights, to help participants prepare for successfully implementing LCA automation.