Update: Guidance on LCAs from worldsteel

The report (available HERE) provides guidance to LCA practitioners on the main methodological choices they need to consider when planning their work.  It is an authoritative, well referenced and objective report.

The context of this work by the worldsteel association is that there is a shortage of up-to-date data and LCA studies which investigate the effects of including remanufacturing processes for components and products during their life cycle.  Where this work is available, the results are often overwhelmingly positive. For example, the 2023 study by the JRC for the European Commission on imaging equipment and printer cartridges (available HERE) highlights the large-scale benefits of remanufacture for both printers and the printer cartridges. The JRC study has been used to inform new Ecodesign regulations for this product category.

Whilst it is pleasing to see that the WBCSD has adopted remanufacturing as part of its CTI metrics for circularity, it too recognises how the poor evidence base makes measurement at the company and product level more complex than it should be.  If you have an LCA prepared to ISO 14040 standards which investigates a remanufactured product, please let us know so that we can include it in our compilation of LCAs.