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Sessions

Pre-program

Sessions

How to integrate life cycle thinking into decision-making ?

High-emission industrial sectors, such as steel, aluminum, cement, chemicals, glass, pulp and paper, mining, refining and advanced manufacturing, face significant challenges in reducing their environmental footprint due to energy-intensive processes and complex global value chains. This session explores how the life cycle approach can support the assessment of decarbonization technology levers, including process electrification, hydrogen-based abatement, renewable energy adoption, operational efficiency improvements, bio-based fuels and feedstocks, carbon capture and recovery, circular material flows and high recycled content value chains.

Contributions are expected analyzing environmental performance at organizational, product and system levels, as well as the trade-offs associated with emerging technologies and industrial transformation scenarios. Particular attention will be paid to assessing Scope 3 emissions and their link with carbon neutrality commitments, while building strategies to comply with the Border Carbon Adjustment Mechanism (BCAM), green labels and eco-design requirements.

The session welcomes methodological developments, comparative assessments and applied case studies offering actionable lessons for decarbonizing high-emission industrial sectors and supporting long-term sustainable development along global value chains.

Reconditioning, remanufacturing and the integration of recycled materials have become major levers in the circular economy. But their environmental benefits are not automatic: they depend on usage, actual performance, reallocation assumptions between first and second life, and the technological context.

Using concrete examples (reconditioned household appliances, remanufactured batteries, recycled carbon fiber), this session will show how Life Cycle Assessment can be used to objectify environmental gains, identify situations where the advantage disappears, and guide credible trade-offs for manufacturers and their customers. It will also highlight the main challenges of implementation and communication: allocating impacts between life cycles, taking performance levels into account, the influence of the type of deposit (industrial scrap vs. post-consumer) and the need for education to avoid simplistic conclusions.

The aim is to demonstrate how LCA can transform the circular economy into robust decisions, while clarifying the limits and conditions of validity of the results.

The session aims to present collaborative research projects involving companies, public authorities, research centers and expert consultancies, such as those produced by SCORE LCA. It will be an opportunity to present the latest research results, with a particular focus on what can be achieved by bringing together several stakeholders in the LCA ecosystem, for example to produce specific case studies. The methodological advances made and applied within the case studies will be presented during the session. These presentations will enable the conclusions to be presented, and potentially those who have used the recommendations from this work to show how they have applied them. The presentations will also identify areas for improvement in existing standards and recommendations, notably ISO 14044 and ISO 14067, as well as those that apply them, such as EN 15804+A2. These areas of progress are intended to be taken up in standardization, and promoted in current regulatory initiatives (PEF, ESPR, CPR, Green Claim Directive, etc.).

Large-scale LCA deployment is accelerating. Automation is becoming an essential lever for integrating carbon impact into industrial decision-making. But automation is not synonymous with simplification. Rapidly producing results does not guarantee their methodological robustness or comparability. Today, documents produced by solid automated tools are sometimes put on the same level as more simplified or less transparent approaches. How can we distinguish between reliable assessments? How can we trust supplier data? What criteria should be used to accept, compare or challenge an LCA? In a context where trade-offs concern design, purchasing and product strategy, data quality and control of uncertainties become decisive factors.

Adaptation to climate change is often approached through risk management, but the relevance and effectiveness of adaptation actions need to be assessed, compared and optimized in terms of their environmental, economic and societal impacts. Furthermore, enhancing the durability (longevity) and resilience of systems, materials and infrastructures is a major lever for maintaining functionality over time, reducing costs (financial, climatic and human) and supporting the transition to more sober models. This session proposes an interdisciplinary opening around the integration of life cycle thinking and sustainability/resilience approaches, covering: physical risks on sites, supply chains, “passive” and “active” adaptation solutions, as well as robustness and life extension strategies. Contributions are expected on: eco-design of adaptation solutions, predictive/proactive maintenance, evaluation methodologies (intrinsic/extrinsic sustainability), articulation with circularity and business model evolutions (economy of functionality). Concrete, quantified examples and feedback (e.g. adaptation diagnostics) will be particularly welcome.

Life Cycle Assessment plays a central role in assessing the environmental relevance of innovative solutions. However, one of its main methodological limitations lies in its ability to compare emerging technologies with those currently deployed, right from the research and development phase. Such an exercise is essential to guide design choices as early as possible in the development process. This issue has been the focus of recent research, notably through the development of prospective LCA, which aims to anticipate potential changes in environmental impacts during product and technology development. The aim of this session is to highlight methodological advances at different levels of analysis, as well as their articulation, to integrate in particular :

- the evolution of production technologies as TRLs rise, taking into account the differences between laboratory environments and industrial contexts; ;

optimization of production lines during the industrialization phase, including increased production rates and economies of scale; ;

- market launch and the effects of competition with alternative solutions, taking into account changes in the technological, economic and regulatory context.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the ISO-standard reference method for evaluating the environmental impact of products and services. However, with a scope limited to the environmental dimension, the major challenges associated with the multiplicity of external indicators (e.g. GeoPolRisk) make interpretation and decision-making complex.

To overcome the first limitation, the data collected for an LCA can be used to broaden its scope, by integrating social, economic or governance indicators. This extension enables a more holistic assessment, aligned with global sustainability issues. To overcome the second limitation, methods such as weighting (e.g. single score or planetary limits) or multi-criteria decision-aid approaches (MCDA) (e.g. Electre) offer ways of structuring these choices, but their application remains unsystematized in practice.

This session aims to explore innovative methodological developments, as well as industrial or public case studies, illustrating how these tools can be deployed to overcome the current limitations of LCA. The aim is twofold: to identify concrete solutions for enriching assessment dimensions and simplifying decision-making, while strengthening the dialogue between research and practice. Discussions will help outline the prospects for a more integrative LCA, capable of meeting growing expectations in terms of sustainability, while remaining operational for those working in the field.

Sectors advances

The healthcare sector, a pillar of national sovereignty and accounting for almost 8 % of national emissions, is entering a new era. Faced with climatic, regulatory and budgetary constraints, it is no longer simply a question of measuring the environmental footprint of products or facilities, but of rethinking the entire system through an integrated life-cycle approach. This session proposes a unified vision of life cycle management applied to healthcare, articulated around three complementary levels:

The strategic level: how to integrate LCA into sector governance, public policy, hospital purchasing and decarbonization trajectories.
The organizational level: how to structure data, manage environmental performance and integrate emerging regulatory requirements.
The operational level: how to design sustainable care paths, balancing environmental impact, quality of care, economic constraints and social issues.

Through feedback and case studies, the session will explore: the widespread use of LCA in healthcare establishments, the integration of lifecycle thinking into care design, transformation levers at value chain level (medical devices, drugs, logistics, energy), methodological and decision-making challenges specific to a highly critical sector.

Mineral and metallic raw materials, whether primary or secondary from recycling, play a central role in energy, digital and industrial transitions. Against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions, supply dependencies and the growing importance of European policies (CRM Act), securing sustainable access to resources requires robust, transparent and operational environmental and criticality assessments. This session aims to bring together Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), criticality assessment and decision support approaches to better characterize the environmental, technical and strategic issues associated with mineral raw materials value chains, from extraction to metallurgy, through to recycling and circularity. It will highlight the challenges linked to data (quality, resolution, consistency), methods (harmonization, prospective modeling) and interpretation of results for industrial and public decision-making. Contributions may cover :

- the development of LCA datasets for metals, minerals, metallurgical processes and recycling processes; ;

- Joint implementation of the concepts of criticality, accessibility, dissipation or depletion and environmental assessments; ;

- case studies illustrating eco-design, decarbonization, circularity and strategies for securing supplies; ;

- methodological advances and decision-support indicators, explaining their benefits and limitations

Agriculture, food and seafood are at the heart of major environmental, economic and societal issues: land use, climate change (carbon emissions and storage), pressures on biodiversity (notably via chemical pollution), water management, but also food sovereignty, nutrition and the maintenance of activities essential to territories. In a context of changing resources and value chains, the Mobilization of Life Cycle Thinking (MCV) provides a relevant framework for characterizing, comparing and anticipating the impacts and performance of supply chains, from field (or sea) to plate. This session will focus on new data (more massive, specific, spatialized) enabling us to better represent the variability of production systems and territorial contexts, as well as the associated methodological challenges: multifunctionality, allocation, changes in land use, integration of nutritional, biodiversity and socio-economic dimensions. Contributions will present case studies and methodological developments in environmental LCA, Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Analysis (SLCA), as well as feedback on the use of these results to guide supply chains, public policies and consumer information.

The decarbonization of mobility and energy storage systems relies on major technological choices: electrification, batteries, alternative fuels, new infrastructures, logistics optimization. But are these solutions really sustainable when analyzed over their entire life cycle?

This session explores how lifecycle approaches can inform strategic decisions in mobility and storage systems, by integrating :

  • impacts linked to critical raw materials and battery manufacturing,
  • the challenges of scaling up and industrialization,
  • trade-offs between different technologies (rail, aviation, maritime, electric vehicles, alternative fuels),
  • second life and recycling effects,
  • as well as indirect impacts related to infrastructure and supply chains.

In addition to comparing carbon footprints, the aim is to analyze the trade-offs between climate, resources, material criticality, circularity and supply chain resilience.

The aim is to show how life cycle management can become a decision-making tool to guide investments, secure industrial strategies and avoid transferring impacts in the transition to low-carbon mobility.

This session will give a good overview of how life cycle assessment is being used to evaluate and innovate chemicals and materials with regard to their sustainability performance, and how they are crucial in facilitating the energy transition and decarbonization. The session will show how life cycle approaches and tools are used to develop chemicals at different levels of maturity in their journey towards productivity and resource sustainability. More sustainable implementation here means in particular a reduction in carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, but also covers resource implications such as higher circularity and lower criticality of raw materials as well as better socio-economic outcomes. A new aspect is the automation of data generation and the link with greenhouse gas and water consumption reporting at organizational level. The session will provide a platform for presenting work related to the session topic.

In an increasingly digital world, with its complex value chain and consequent environmental and social impacts, it seems necessary to promote eco-socio-design to contain its growing impact. However, the approach is limited by the lack of transparent, reliable, up-to-date and easily usable impact data for all digital components. The number and diversity of upstream and downstream stakeholders is also an obstacle to identifying strong levers for improvement. And let's not forget the growing use of digital services, which raises questions about the sovereignty of material and energy resources. These gaps and questions prevent stakeholders from making informed decisions in favor of a more sustainable digital future. The aim of this session is to discuss the state of the art in LCA of electronic and digital components: from data to tools, from key stages to study to conditions favorable to eco-socio-design. It invites the scientific and industrial community to collectively share experience feedback, obstacles encountered, current initiatives and future development needs.

Methodological advances

Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA), recently standardized by ISO 14075:2024, is a key method for integrating the social dimension into the assessment of the sustainability of systems, products and services, particularly in the context of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessments (LCSA).

This session will bring together contributions on recent methodological advances in ASCV and ADCV. Presentations will cover conceptual frameworks, particularly in terms of evaluation approaches, the development and selection of social indicators, and issues relating to the collection, quality, comparability and interpretation of social data.

The session will also feature case studies illustrating the current level of operationalization of ASCV and ADCV in different contexts. Discussions between speakers and participants will help identify current limitations, methodological trade-offs and future research needs in order to contribute to the development and consolidation of ADCV.

Accounting for biogenic C is a key topic in LCA. It is explored in ISO 14067 and in PEF, with choices that will evolve with the revision of ISO 14067 conducted in conjunction with the GHG Protocol, and the publication in February 2026 of the first new version of the requirements and recommendations for PEF. This session covers the following points:

  • global vision (especially «beware of deforestation»),
  • methodological choices for calculating balances for all uses (end-of-life with capture, recovered waste with biogenic C content... and therefore also transfer between life cycles, etc.).
  • end-of-life accounting / biogenic carbon storage
  • better consideration of LCAs (covering all origins, including forests and waste)
  • examples of application in studies, such as EHSFs or comparative LCAs
  • PEF choices (and other regulations...) that will have been announced by then, validated progressively, and whose consequences will have been studied.
  • GHG Protocol and ISO choices, as part of the ISO 14067 revision.

The objective of the sassion is to «confront» these elements, and discuss the new consensus that is emerging, and will be the key support for ISO 14067 work, for example, in order to avoid discrepancies between carbon footprint practices.

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers major opportunities to address several well-known challenges in life cycle assessment (LCA), including data creation and the automation of repetitive or complex tasks. However, the integration of AI in LCA is still emerging, and its potential for improving the performance and reliability of studies remains largely unexplored. This session will focus primarily on the operational and methodological needs of LCA that can be addressed by AI, as well as on concrete applications already deployed or under development.

Contributions are mainly expected on: the precise identification of LCA needs for which AI brings real added value, as well as associated technical solutions; feedback and concrete case studies (methods, tools, software) illustrating the possible gains, limits and challenges of implementing AI in LCA. Developers of software solutions are particularly encouraged to contribute.

In addition, the session is open to contributions on the evaluation and validation of the quality of results generated by AI, as well as on the impact of AI on the evolution of LCA professions and the conditions for a responsible and relevant integration of AI in LCA.

The erosion of biodiversity is a major issue, on a par with climate change, and manifests itself through multiple pressures (changes in land use, pollution, pressure on water, fragmentation of habitats, overexploitation, etc.). Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approaches already capture some of these pressures, but taking biodiversity into account remains limited by the complexity of the concept, the absence of fully satisfactory indicators and the need for more refined, contextualized approaches. This session aims to bring together the LCA, ecology/nature science and organizational communities. The aim is to discuss methodological advances and feedback on the assessment of biodiversity impacts and the development of biodiversity footprints for products and companies. In particular, it will address current conceptual and methodological limitations, the consideration of emerging pressures, and the integration of benefits and dependencies via ecosystem service metrics. Expected contributions will cover the development and use of indicators, their contextualization, the interpretation of results and the identification of potentially positive impacts. Particular attention will be paid to the limits and conditions of use of these indicators.

In a context where life cycle management is becoming a central tool for strategy, regulatory compliance and environmental performance management, it is essential to develop solid, operational skills at all levels of the organization.

This pragmatic session explores :

What key skills must be mastered by decision-makers, technical, operational and sales teams?
How can we structure appropriate training courses (company, university, training center) that go beyond methodological LCA to include regulatory issues (CSRD, DPP, EPD) and strategic decision-making? ;
Effective pedagogical approaches, including the use of real-life cases, digital tools, sector-specific case studies, and the integration of AI into learning ;
Challenges encountered today (lack of skills, fragmentation of reference systems, difficulties of appropriation by SMEs) and avenues for acceleration.

This session is aimed at those involved in upgrading the skills of organizations and sectors, whether through in-house training, the design of teaching modules, or the dissemination of best practices.

Forward-looking Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used to examine the evolution of the impact of production and consumption systems. At the same time, absolute LCA approaches (AESA) aim to assess the compatibility of environmental impacts with explicit thresholds, such as planetary limits or carbon budgets. However, these two frameworks are still rarely articulated in an operational way.

The aim of this session is to bring together methodological contributions on the coupling of prospective and absolute LCA, in order to assess future scenarios not only in relative terms, but also with regard to absolute sustainability objectives. It aims to discuss methods for integrating thresholds (static, dynamic, sectoral or regionalized) into prospective assessments, linking sectoral scenarios and global trajectories, and clarifying choices for allocating or sharing environmental constraints.

Presentations may focus on methodological developments, case studies or feedback, highlighting adaptations, compromises, limitations and implications for public and industrial decision-making.

What opportunities for value creation do standards and regulations offer?

Coming soon