The life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodological tool for studying the environmental aspects and potential impacts of a product or service throughout its lifecycle, from the extraction of raw materials, production, its use, and eventually, its disposal and/or recycling. The first official definition of an LCA was provided by the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (Klopffer 1997, 2006): "Life Cycle Assessment is an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment, to assess the impact of those energy and material uses and releases to the environment, and to evaluate and implement opportunities to affect environmental improvements. The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the product, process, or activity, encompassing extracting and processing raw materials, manufacturing, transportation and distribution, use, re-use, maintenance, recycling, and final disposal .

Several tools to support decision-making have been developed in environmental management, such as:

• cumulative energy analysis (CERA);
• environmental impact assessment (EIA);
• environmental risk assessment (ERA);
• input-output analysis (IOA);
• material flow accounting/substance flow analysis (MFA/SFA);
• material intensity analysis (MIA).

All these tools include the term life cycle in their definitions, however, the LCA differs because its principal goal is to reduce the use of resources and the volume of waste to optimize the environmental performance of the process being studied. The LCA is a useful methodology to make informed decisions because it allows the environmental impacts of different products and activities to be compared. The LCA is the most widely accepted methodology, it has been standardized and it is undergoing the process of harmonization (Hauschild, M.Z., Rosenbaum, R.K. and Olsen 2018; ISO 2006; Klopffer, W. and Grahl, B. 2014).