LCA Experiences in Danish Industry: Results of a Survey

A study on Danish industry's experiences with LCA has been performed. Twenty-six enterprises from different sectors filled in a questionnaire. The enterprises are still in an adoption and learning phase and experiences with full-blown LCA's are sparse. Expectations of future market pressure to supply more environmentally friendly products is the most important incentive for the enterprises to engage in LCA activities.

This pressure has, however, not emerged yet and the enterprises have not achieved the expected competitive advantages yet. LCA work has revealed new environmental aspects of the products with subsequent new priorities in the environmental efforts. Only a few enterprises have built up in-house LCA competence whereas consultants are heavily involved in LCA work.

In large enterprises LCA work is predominantly carried out by environmental staff members, but also product development staff is involved. The nature of the cooperation and role distribution between these two actors is not clear.