Applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in health and research supply chains
ModulesApplying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in health and research supply chains
This micromodule introduces Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a structured tool for evaluating environmental impacts across chains. It aims to develop foundational understanding of life cycle thinking, highlight sustainability challenges, and demonstrate how LCA supports evidence-based decision-making, identifies environmental hotspots, and addresses uncertainty in complex systems such as healthcare delivery and agro-food logistics.
At the end of this module, students will be able to:
- Explain the concept and purpose of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
- Describe the key stages of supply chains using illustrative cases from healthcare and research practice.
- Apply life cycle thinking (cradle-to-grave) to real-world products.
- Identify major environmental impacts and hotspots across supply chains.
- Understand how LCA supports sustainable and evidence-based decision-making.
What is this about?
Life cycle assessment(LCA) in healthcare practices
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a systematic method used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product, process, or service throughout its entire life cycle from raw material extraction, production, and distribution to use and final disposal. It helps identify where the greatest environmental impacts occur and supports more sustainable and informed decision-making.
Why Conduct LCAs
- Dentify areas of high environmental impact within production processes
- Quantify key impacts like greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and energy consumption
- Identify opportunities for waste reduction, energy savings, and the use of more sustainable materials
Benefits
- Provides data-driven insights for informed decision-making
- Guides process and product design improvements
- Enables hotspot analysis to focus sustainability efforts
- Helps set concrete sustainability goals and measure progress
Research practices: wet and dry laboratories
Research activities can take place in both wet and dry laboratories, each with distinct processes and environmental impacts.
Wet Laboratory (Wet Lab) Research Practice
A wet lab is a research environment where experiments are conducted using biological materials, chemicals, liquids, and specialized laboratory equipment. These activities often require substantial energy, generate plastic and chemical waste, and consume water and other resources.
Dry Laboratory (Dry Lab) Research Practice
A dry lab is a research environment where research is conducted through computational methods, including data analysis, modeling, simulations, and artificial intelligence. These activities rely on computers, data storage, and digital infrastructure rather than physical experiments.
While considerable attention has been given to reducing environmental impacts in wet laboratories, progress in digital or "dry lab" research has been slower. The growing use of data-intensive approaches in fields such as population health, personalized medicine, and artificial intelligence has increased the environmental footprint of digital research. Beyond the impacts associated with manufacturing computer hardware, digital technologies consume substantial amounts of energy through data centers, cloud storage, and high-performance computing.
Assessing these impacts is important not only for reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also because environmental sustainability considerations are increasingly being incorporated into research funding requirements, ethics frameworks, and research integrity guidelines.Identify the environmental hotspots in a research laboratory
Click on the hotspots to explore the environmental impacts associated with wet laboratory research practices and discover how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can help identify environmental hotspots and support more sustainable research.
Hotspot activity: dry laboratory
Click on the hotspots to explore the environmental impacts associated with wet laboratory research practices and discover how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can help identify environmental hotspots and support more sustainable research.
Sustainability action: My Green Lab
LCA helps identify environmental hotspots across research activities. Sustainable laboratory initiatives such as My Green Lab provide practical strategies to reduce these impacts and support more environmentally responsible research.
Sustainability Action: algorithm optimization
Optimizing algorithms improves efficiency by increasing speed and reducing memory usage. Since memory power consumption depends largely on the amount of memory allocated rather than used, minimizing peak memory requirements can significantly reduce energy consumption and support green computing. The Green Algorithms calculator can be used to estimate the carbon footprint of computational tasks and assess the environmental impact of different computing approaches.
Figure 1: Green Algorithms calculator taken from Green Algorithms (green- algorithms.org)
Further Sustainability Recommendations
| Recommendations | Description |
|---|---|
| Reduce the Pragmatic Scaling Factor | Limit the number of times algorithms are executed by minimizing unnecessary reruns, excessive parameter tuning, and debugging on full datasets.
|
| Choose Efficient Data Centers | Run computations in energy-efficient data centers located in regions with low-carbon electricity and low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
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| Offset Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions | Compensate unavoidable emissions through certified carbon offset projects such as renewable energy, reforestation, or clean cooking initiatives.
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References
ALLEA (2023) The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity – Revised Edition 2023. Berlin. DOI 10.26356/ECOC [accessed 10.05.24]
Baehr, J., Göllner-Völker, L., Baehr, M. et al. Life cycle assessment of pharmaceutical and clinical packaging required for medication administration practices. Int J Life Cycle Assess 29, 416–432 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-023-02270-x
European Commission, Joint Research Centre. (2021). Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate environmental impacts of bioeconomy [Video]. Knowledge4Policy.https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/audiovisual/knowledge-centre-bioeconomy-video-life-cycle-assessment-lca-evaluate-environmental_en
European Commission “Ethics for Researchers: facilitating research excellence in FP7”. Directorate-General for research and innovation, 2013. 10.2777/7491 [accessed 10.05.24]
Grealey, J., Lannelongue, L., Saw, W., Marten, J., Méric, G., Ruiz-Carmona, S., Inouye, M. “The Carbon Footprint of Bioinformatics”, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 39, Issue 3,
Green Algorithms (green-algorithms.org) [accessed 10.05.24]
Lannelongue, L., Grealey, J., Inouye, M. “Green Algorithms: Quantifying the Carbon Footprint of Computation” Adv. Sci. 2021, 8, 2100707. https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202100707 [accessed 10.05.24]
Pham T, van der Schans J. A Conceptual Framework for Life-Cycle Health Technology Assessment Value in Health, 2023;26, 612-613
Samuel, G., and Richie, C. “Reimagining research ethics to include environmental sustainability: a principled approach, including a case study of data-driven health research” J Med Ethics, August 2022. 10.1136/jme-2022-108489 [accessed 09.05.24]
Sharma B, Swanton B, Kuo J, Sysawang K, Yagyu S, Motala A, Tolentino D, Meshkati N, Hempel S. Use of Life Cycle Assessment in the Healthcare Industry: Environmental Impacts and Emissions Associated With Products, Processes, and Waste [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US);2024 Nov. Report No.: 24(25)-EHC027. PMID: 39656897.
UK Research and Innovation. “UK RESEARCH AND INNOVATION fEC GRANTS STANDARD TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF GRANT GUIDANCE” 2021 UKRI-021122-fECGrantTermsAndConditionsGuidance.pdf [accessed 10.05.24]
