Life-cycle analysis

Life-cycle analysis

The assessment of a product’s full environmental costs, from raw material to final disposal, in terms of its extraction costs, transportation, manufacturing, consumption, use, and disposal throughout its lifetime. Life-cycle analysis is used as a tool for evaluating the relative performance of building materials and technologies. The life-cycle cost is the amortized annual cost of a product, including capital costs, installation costs, operating costs, maintenance costs, and disposal costs discounted over the lifetime of a product.