Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Footprint methods in EU policies: past, present and future

Transitioning toward climate-neutral, circular, and sustainable economies—as envisioned in the European Green Deal and the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal—requires a clear understanding and systematic reduction of environmental impacts across the entire life cycle of products and organisations. Life cycle thinking and Environmental Footprint (EF) methods have become essential tools within the EU policy and market landscape to assess the sustainability of materials, products, organisations, innovations and territories, as well as to improve consumer information. The key challenge ahead is to ensure EF methods and other life cycle approaches are coherently shaped and efficiently applied at scale, so they can effectively inform policy and business decisions supporting the transition to sustainability.