EU guide to boost green goods and services

EurActiv - A European Commission handbook published on Friday (12 March) hopes to give businesses and politicians the right tools to assess the life cycle of all products and services in order to help boost the green economy. The document provides detailed guidance on how to quantify the environmental impact, such as greenhouse-gas emissions and resource use, of a product or service in an attempt to conduct a full life-cycle analysis.

The handbook was drafted by the Commission's in-house research facility, the Joint Research Institute (JRC), in cooperation with the EU executive's environment directorate. It was produced as part of the European Platform on Life-Cycle Assessment, which is lead by the JRC's Institute for the Environment and Sustainability (IES)...The handbook is actually a series of technical documents that provide detailed practice-oriented guidance on all LCA steps to ensure consistent and quality-assured analysis. The documents are in line with the two international standards on the matter (ISO 14040 and 14044), and are more specific, concrete and quantitative where relevant, the Commission noted.