A life cycle assessment (LCA) determines the environmental impact at all stages of a product's life cycle, including production, usage, and disposal; the LCA process includes procedures that gather and evaluate the inputs and outputs of materials, energy, and the related impact that can be directly assigned to the product or process at any point in its life cycle;
the main purpose of an LCA is to assess potential environmental impact in order to address issues before hazardous or irreversible effects are created;
LCAs include goal definitions, inventories, impact analyses, and improvement analyses, which enable companies to identify environmental issues and explore possible solutions to problems; and
inherency is the property of a life cycle that may hide hazardous or energy-consuming processes, creating a net total product that appears to be benign or efficient but in actuality does have negative impacts.