LOG904-198 Application and modelling of Product-Oriented Life Cycle Assessments (Autumn 2026)

The course provides a detailed exploration to the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology and how to model a product-oriented LCA. The method is described as one of the most robust and recognised environmental impact assessment methods to date. Throughout the course, students are to systemize large datasets, model complex product systems, quantify environmental impacts from multiple impact categories, interpret results and trade-offs, define environmental hotspots and evaluate the accuracy of the modelled system.

By engaging in case work, students will select and work on real industrial cases from either Ship Construction & Operation (Olympic Boreas), Industrial Algae Cultivation (Norwegian Seaweed Cluster), Energy Infrastructure (Statkraft) and Calcium Carbonate Processing (Omya Hustadmarmor). From these datasets the students will model and conduct a Product-Oriented Life Cycle Assessment throughout the duration of the course. Moreover, the basic principles behind data management, the LCA software: Umberto, environmental impact allocation, simple programming (scripts), critical use of Large Language Models (LLM) (i.e., Copilot, ChatGPT…), environmental impact categories, data quality and uncertainty evaluations are to be explored.

Knowledge

• Explain, in detail, the key principles of all phases in the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), methodology, and their dependencies.
• Describe multiple environmental impact categories and their relevance in different production systems.
• Understand the foundational principles behind defining and documenting modelling requirements and cut-off criteria’s.
• Highlight environmental trade-offs occurring based on selected changes in the product system.
• Explain the terminology associated to product-oriented life cycle assessments and its phases.

Skills

• Be able to conduct simple modelling and environmental impact allocations in the LCA software: Umberto.
• Systemize and ensure traceability for various types of datasets in different formats.
• Evaluate the data quality and uncertainty of different datapoints from various sources.
• Quality assure output from Large Language Models (LLM).

General competence

• Define accurate and informative functional units and system boundaries for product systems to be assessed.
• Conduct environmental impact allocations based on product specific datasets (Bill of Materials/Quantities)
• Quantify environmental impacts and conduct hotspot analysis of a production system
• Separate datapoints correctly into different life cycle stages within a product system.

The assessment structure is a case specific deliverable (100%). The case deliverable comprises of two components, a client meeting of the on-going case work (25%) and a final case delivery in a report format (75%). Each student is required to participate in one group assignment, and all members within a group will receive the same grade for their collective submission. The case will be industry specific and selected by the group at the start of the seminar. Successful completion of both components is mandatory to achieve a passing grade in the course.

Form of assessment: Home assessment

• Proportion: 75 %
• Duration: 4 days
• Grouping: Group
• Grading scale: Letter (A - F)
• Support material: All

Form of assessment: Presentation

• Proportion: 25 %
• Duration: 20 minutes
• Grouping: Group
• Grading scale: Letter (A - F)
• Support material: All