Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A facility compares two centrifuge models on a 10-year LCA basis and chooses the higher-priced unit with lower embodied carbon and longer warranty.
- Is an instance
An institutional sustainability office maintains an LCA-based decision tool for equipment over 25,000 GBP.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A like-for-like price comparison ignoring environmental indicators is not LCA-informed.
- Not an instance
A vendor's marketing leaflet claiming green credentials without disclosed life-cycle indicators is not LCA.
Editorial commentary
Lab equipment LCA recognises that embodied carbon (manufacturing impact) is often comparable to or larger than in-use energy emissions for many instruments, especially short-lived ones. It draws on the ISO 14040 / 14044 methodology, with functional units expressed per analysis run or per year of service. Findings inform procurement choices (refurbished vs new, extended service contracts, modular upgrades vs replacement) and influence supplier disclosure expectations. The ACT label (My Green Lab) provides product-level disclosure that incorporates LCA-style indicators.
References
- ISO 14040 and 14044 LCA standards; My Green Lab ACT product database.
ISO 14040/14044 methodology applied to lab equipment
Lab equipment LCA follows the four-phase structure set out in ISO 14040/14044: goal and scope definition (including the functional unit — e.g., per analysis run, per sample processed, or per year of service); life-cycle inventory (LCI), which tallies material and energy inputs/outputs across the equipment’s life; life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA), which translates that inventory into impact categories such as carbon footprint; and interpretation, where results inform an actual decision.
Embodied carbon vs. operational energy
For many lab instruments — particularly shorter-lived or lower-power devices — embodied carbon (the emissions from raw-material extraction, manufacturing, and shipping) is comparable to or larger than in-use energy emissions over the equipment’s service life. This is a genuinely different picture from large, continuously-running, high-power equipment such as -80°C freezers or autoclaves, where operational energy use tends to dominate the footprint instead. Knowing which pattern applies to a given equipment category changes what a lifecycle assessment should actually optimise for.
How LCA findings change procurement decisions
In practice, lab equipment LCA findings feed directly into procurement choices: refurbished versus new purchase, extended service/warranty contracts that lengthen usable life, modular upgrade paths instead of full replacement, and increasingly, a request for supplier-provided environmental disclosure (an Environmental Product Declaration-style report) as part of the tender process.
My Green Lab’s ACT label
My Green Lab’s ACT label — standing for Accountability, Consistency, and Transparency — provides product-level environmental disclosure for lab equipment and consumables, built from a standardized supplier questionnaire covering manufacturing, packaging, and energy-use information. It functions similarly to a nutrition label: it discloses standardized, comparable environmental indicators rather than certifying a product as “green” outright, and increasingly informs the LCA-based procurement decisions described above. See CASRAI’s entries on My Green Lab, the ACT label, and LEAF for the related certification and labelling landscape, and green lab certification for how equipment-level disclosure feeds into whole-laboratory certification.
References
- ISO 14040 and 14044 LCA standards; My Green Lab ACT product database.
Also known as
Equipment LCA · Lab instrument lifecycle assessment
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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