One of the leading topics in the field of life cycle assessment (LCA) is the development, adaptation, and application of techniques to assess emerging technologies early in their development cycle. This interactive special session will include a presentation on several controversial topics in LCA of emerging technologies, followed by several rounds of discussion to solicit feedback and further ideas from the audience.

The ACLCA working group on LCA of Emerging Technologies was founded in 2021 to: 1) Serve as a central body within the LCA community for the identification, resolution, and communication of technical and methodological issues related to emerging technology LCA ; and 2) Facilitate, coordinate and provide guidance for the development, implementation and communication of LCA and its use. Over the past several years, the working group has met regularly online and at the ACLCA and ISSST conferences to craft guidance documents and debate key issues associated with the group’s mandate. Through this process, a key roadblock has arisen: we cannot produce clear guidance when the community is divided about what that guidance should say! We find that these divisions can highlight important areas for research. At the same time, they do not imply a correct answer, but rather may point to the need for special care or even pointing out the limitations of our methodology.

In this special session, we will highlight controversial topics such as: 1) appropriate use of LCA, especially for technologies at low TRL (technology readiness level); 2) whether/how to scale-up development-, from lab-, bench- or pilot-scale data; 3) comparison of emerging technologies with incumbent technologies; 4) managing uncertainty and whether sophisticated probabilistic/stochastic methods are appropriate for emerging technologies; 5) the degree to which stakeholder engagement is required/desirable for LCA of early-stage technology; 6) the degree to which LCA of emerging technologies can/should be standardized (beyond the level of existing ISO 14040/14044 frameworks) or left flexible.

Rather than trying to come to a consensus, the session will present the key arguments that have so far been discussed, and then solicit audience feedback through breakout groups or room-wide discussion. These arguments are the basis for a draft manuscript (currently in preparation for submission to peer-review) that will lay out different perspectives on each topic and explain where the community does/doesn’t agree. Key points from the ISSST discussion may be incorporated into that manuscript, or else may seed next steps and future work by the Working Group. The resulting paper(s) or future report(s) are intended as: an entry-point for junior practitioners who wish to learn about the range of expert perspectives in the LCA community; a guide for LCA stakeholders (e.g., technology developers, funding agencies) to help set expectations or interpret results with more methodological context; as well as a review and pulse-check on the status of LCA of emerging technologies for more seasoned analysts.