LCA for academia: a free template for your MSc thesis

This is a thesis template for MSc and PhD students structured around ISO 14040/14044. It outlines the elements required in each section to ensure academic rigor and replicability.

Section 1 — Goal and scope definition

• Purpose of the study (e.g. comparative LCA between PVC and PE window profiles)
• Audience (academic literature, manufacturer)
• Functional unit (e.g. 1 metre of profile, 50-year service life)
• System boundary (cradle-to-gate / cradle-to-grave / cradle-to-cradle)
• Excluded flows and justification
• Data quality requirements (Pedigree DQR)
• Allocation choice and justification
• Need for critical review (third-party)

Section 2 — Life-cycle inventory (LCI)

Distinguish foreground (specific) data from background (generic). For each inventory item, list source, year/geography representativeness and DQR score. On clca, ecoinvent v3.12 background mapping is one click; remember to note "ecoinvent v3.12 cut-off" in your thesis. If you have local supplier data, custom activity creation lets you extend ecoinvent and document the source.

Section 3 — Impact assessment (LCIA)

In a typical academic thesis, ReCiPe or CML is preferred over the EN 15804+A2 indicator set. clca supports 7 standard LCIA methods and produces comparison plots automatically. Reporting results across multiple methods strengthens credibility — e.g. report GWP under both CML v4.8 2016 and IPCC 2013.

Section 4 — Interpretation

Dominance analysis, sensitivity analysis and uncertainty (Monte Carlo or pedigree-based) discussion. Your thesis must show that each major conclusion is robust to assumption changes. The AI report assistant can produce an interpretation draft, but in an academic thesis you should write the final text in your own words with citations — AI is best used as a quick structure scaffold.

Real-time supervisor feedback

Your supervisor can connect directly to your model, leave sentence-level comments, review inventory item selection. clca's real-time multi-user mode replaces email-based file exchange with a live feedback loop. In TÜBİTAK or EU Horizon research projects with multiple researchers, workspace isolation makes it always clear who is on which module and which version.

Academic 50% discount and eligibility