October 24, 2025
Measure Sustainability: LCA
In this video, Angelica Rota explains the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and its specific application to glass products. The LCA is a standardized process that evaluates a product's environmental impact from raw material extraction ("cradle") to final disposal ("grave"). The assessment follows four phases: defining the goal and scope, conducting a life cycle inventory, assessing the environmental impacts, and interpreting the results. For construction products like glass, the life cycle is divided into modules covering production, use, end-of-life, and potential benefits from recycling. The findings of an LCA are often published in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), a verified document that communicates transparent environmental data. For flat glass, the manufacturing stage is the most environmentally intensive, contributing the vast majority to its global warming potential due to the high energy required to melt raw materials. Increasing the use of recycled glass cullet is a key strategy for reducing this impact, as it significantly lowers the energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions of the melting process. Understanding LCA is crucial for identifying environmental hotspots and driving more sustainable practices in glass production and use. The video was produced by the Open GLASSroom project. Special thanks to Angelica Rota for contributing to the Open GLASSroom OER collection. The creation of these resources has been (partially) funded by the ERASMUS+ grant program of the European Union under grant no. 2022-1-DE01-KA220-HED-000089750. Neither the European Commission nor the project's national funding agency DAAD are responsible for the content or liable for any losses or damage resulting of the use of these resources.