The Standardised SLCA Questionnaire and Ready Reckoner
There are two generic tools available to aid with SLCA assessments - the Standardised SLCA Questionnaire and the Ready Reckoner.
The Standardised SLCA questionnaire (for Step 5 of the SLCA process) contains carefully directed questions that help with the assessment of the product life cycle. The questionnaire consists of seven questions for each cell of the SLCA matrix; 140 questions in total. The questions deal with both:
- Current status with respect to sustainability principles; and
- Actions to make progress
The questions are designed to be answered in a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ manner and are categorized three ways:
- by life cycle stage – to provide a life cycle view of product impacts
- by system condition – to assess how products are unsustainable from a full systems perspective
- by ‘current status’ and ‘progress’ – to provide a full measure of where we are today by recognizing both sustainability impacts and activities already initiated to address them.
The image below gives an example of one set of questions.
The Ready Reckoner is a quick tool for helping with the analysis (Step 6 of the SLCA process) of the answers to the SLCA questionnaire. In practical terms it is an excel based tool into which you enter the responses into a tally sheet. The tool then automatically assigns coulours to help with the identification of key impact areas. This is done through a set algorithm that simplifies the analysis process to quickly give an overview of the main sustainability challenges of your product.
Get access to these tools
You can get access to and the right to use these tools in your organization and commercially if you undergo SLCA-training.
Please read here for more information around the SLCA process and how to register for training opportunities.