The goal of conducting a packaging lifecycle assessment (LCA) is to understand the environmental impacts of a packaging system across the lifecycle and identify the biggest environmental impact drivers.  
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It can also be used to compare the environmental impacts for multiple alternative packaging solutions with the help of tools such as MCDA (Multi Criteria Decisions Analysis) to understand which solutions would have the lowest environmental impact and inform future decisions when considering packaging system options. 

To make informed decisions it is important to consider the whole lifecycle and think of the packaging system from cradle-to-grave. To help make this process easier, we have developed a standard Packaging LCA template in excel which includes common materials, transport and end of life for packaging systems. Simply fill in the required information to define the Bill of Materials for your packaging system, import the completed BOM and view the results of the Packaging LCA. For more information on the template refer to the "How to use the packaging LCA" FAQ.
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The Packaging LCA model references Ecoinvent datasets. Some datasets have both a primary material source and a secondary material source. Primary material sources refer to 100% virgin material e.g. from raw material extraction. Secondary material sources refer to 100% recycled material content.
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