LCA: Your Lifeboat in the Upcoming Regulatory Tsunami
%20(8).png)
Nobody working in sustainability wakes up in the morning thinking: “Wow, I CANNOT wait to see what the EU has cooked up for my sector’s regulatory compliance today”. And yet, regulations have been the central theme of sustainability discourse in the past couple of years. While it may sometimes feel as though the Commission is sending mixed signals, regulations are still one of the driving forces of sustainable action and understanding their implications is crucial to stay ahead of the curve. Of course with regulations comes a baggage of other issues, first of all collecting the right kind of data. But don’t just take our word for it, 83% of sustainability teams seem to agree with us. At Pilario, we have been forced to become “experts” in the topic of regulatory compliance, so the least we could do for our fellow stressed-out sustainability professionals is help you out with a short guide: how do regulations tie into Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and when should I even bother with it? (Do you not know what an LCA is? We described it at length here). In this article we will focus on the most relatable regulations, namely: ESPR, DPP, PPWR and the Green Claims Directive (if you are wondering, no I did not just randomly bash my forehead on the keyboard to produce all those acronyms).
1. ESPR: The Regulation That Wants Your Product to Behave
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is the EU saying: “if your product is not sustainable by our definition, we don’t want it”. With ESPR, the EU has prioritised some specific products and categorised them into what we refer as “product categories”, including metals such as iron, steel and aluminium; textiles and footwear; furniture including mattresses; tyres; detergents; paints, lubricants and chemicals; electronics and other ICT products.
Unlike earlier ecodesign rules (which focused mostly on energy efficiency while politely ignoring everything else), ESPR now demands:
- Circularity metrics
- Resource efficiency metrics
- Durability and repairability scoring
- Carbon and environmental footprints
Basically, if your product doesn’t have its environmental act together, ESPR will make it apparent. As part of ESPR, the digital product passports (DPPs) were introduced for various product categories. While LCA is not mandatory for ESPR as a whole, it will be crucial for DPPs and is a versatile tool to help with ESPR as well.
More details if you (unlike us) enjoy long legal texts.
2. DPP: Sustainability’s New Report Card
While ESPR tells you how sustainable your product needs to be, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) is the EU’s way of saying: ”if your product’s data is not transparent, we don’t want it on our turf”.
If you think keeping track of your product data today is painful, just wait until DPPs start rolling into place. Imagine giving every product a tiny digital scorecard that:
- Follows it everywhere, from the raw materials sourced until its end of life
- Records all its environmental sins
- Makes them public
- And tattles on you if something looks suspicious
That is, in a nutshell, what the DPPs will be. What needs to be disclosed exactly will be determined for each product category. DPPs are set to roll out for many product categories, with more detailed information for textiles anticipated as early as 2026.
While the exact requirements will vary for each product category, we can already guess what important information will be required for most, such as:
- Life cycle impacts and carbon footprints
- Material composition
- Circularity performance
- End-of-life guidance
More EU DPP details (brace yourself) can be found here.
How do LCAs tie into DPPs?
As it stands today, life cycle assessments will likely be crucial for having complete data to include in DPPs.
While the regulatory landscape seems scattered, the Commission’s aim is to centralise and connect regulations and directives to each other. For example, the product categories laid out in the ESPR (and DPPs) also have been prioritised for Product Environmental Footprint Product Category Rules (PEFCR), which are specific rules for LCA calculations for specific products. It is highly likely that results of LCA calculated using the PEFCR for textile & apparel will be mandatory in the upcoming DPPs for fashion. And this is to be expected for all other product categories laid out in the ESPR directive.
The real challenge doesn’t even end after running LCAs (especially if you let yourself be helped by Pilario’s trusty software), it will be organising all the data without losing your mind or your suppliers’ phone numbers.
This is where Pilario and its DPP partners come in: automated and supported supplier data collection so you don’t need to chase suppliers like an intern with a clipboard.
3. PPWR: The Packaging Rules That Will Rule Your Life
If you work in sustainability and sell packaging in the EU, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) is probably all you can think about right now. PPWR manifested itself as an annoying friend asking you WAY too many questions about your “personal business”. But the kick is, the questions are justified and represent the bare minimum we can do to encourage more sustainable actions in the sector. So what annoying questions can you expect?
- “Is this recyclable?”
- “Are you SURE it’s recyclable?”
- “Show me the data that proves it.”
- “Okay but what about the real recyclability, not the ‘marketing said so’ recyclability?”
- “Also how much recycled content does it actually have, 20%!? Gotta pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers! I won’t take any less than 30%.”
PPWR is obsessed with:
- Recyclability performance grades
- Minimum recycled content rules
- Setting rules and targets for re-use
Basically, if your packaging isn’t sustainable, PPWR will make that very clear. More info on PPWR directly from the Commission can be found here.
How do LCAs tie into PPWR?
While an LCA is not necessarily needed for PPWR, a lot of the data points required for PPWR are also needed for LCA. This means that after doing an LCA, you will have all the right data to gauge your compliance with PPWR. Taking a step further, the aim of PPWR is to improve the environmental performance of packaging. If you want to prove that your new packaging materials or manufacturing methods are more sustainable than they used to be, LCA is really the only way to achieve this in a trustworthy way.
4. The Green Claims Directive: The Regulation That Will Vaporise Your Vague Buzzwords
If you’re in sustainability and/or marketing, the Green Claims Directive should be running your life by now (and if it isn’t definitely keep reading). In short, the Green Claims Directive is determined to hunt down every unsubstantiated environmental claim ever printed on a label, website, billboard, or ad (don’t be a Nike, Lacoste or Superdry in this day and age).
This regulation has one main mission: to obliterate the timeless tradition of slapping a leaf icon on something and calling it “eco-friendly.” The era of vague promises is over. The Directive wants receipts, spreadsheets, methodologies, impact categories, and preferably all of them in triplicate.
Here’s the type of interrogation it delivers with absolute gusto:
- You said “green” - define “green.” In numbers.
- “Low emissions”? On what planet? According to which method? Compared to which baseline?
- “Sustainable”? Please specify: ecologically, economically, spiritually?
- “Carbon neutral”? Did you actually reduce emissions, or did you simply purchase offsets?
- And that charming botanical illustration you printed on your packaging - is it decorative or scientific? Choose wisely.
The Directive’s priorities are crystal clear:
- Mandatory scientific substantiation
- Third-party verification
- Publicly accessible data
- Recognised assessment methods (cue LCA entering stage left)
- A complete crackdown on poetic marketing fluff
Basically, if your claim can’t survive exposure to real environmental data, the Green Claims Directive will turn it to dust.
How do LCAs tie into the Green Claims Directive?
The Directive doesn’t explicitly say, “Run an LCA for every breath your product takes,” but basically. If you want to prove anything beyond “this product exists,” it might as well. LCA is the only method robust enough to get you through the sustainability communication gates without being catapulted back out immediately and with a fat fine.
LCAs will:
- Show your carbon footprint reductions without creative reinterpretation
- Quantify resource efficiency like a sustainability accountant
- Demonstrate improvements in materials, processes, or supply chains
- Substantiate your claims in a way that auditors will love you for
In short:
The Green Claims Directive attacks unverified marketing.
LCA supplies the verification.
Together, they create a world where consumers can finally trust environmental claims.
Conclusion: LCA Is the Only Raft Left
After surfing through ESPR, DPPs, PPWR, and the Green Claims Directive, one thing becomes painfully obvious: the EU is not playing around. Whether it’s product design, packaging, transparency, or marketing, every regulation is cryptically whispering the same thing:
“Show me your data.” Which might as well say: “Show me your LCA”.
These rules are designed to push companies into actually understanding the environmental impact of what they produce and put on the market. And while the regulatory alphabet soup can feel like a hostile word puzzle, LCA is the one tool that consistently gives you solid, defensible data across all of them.
Sustainability assessments and LCAs are no longer the quirky sustainability side quests you do once a year for an end-of-year report. They are the backbone of compliance, transparency, and credible environmental communication. The sooner teams treat it like the core operational asset it is, the fewer 3 a.m. compliance-induced existential crises they’ll have to endure.
However, LCAs require data. Lots of it. High quality data. From suppliers who may or may not be reading your emails. And managing all of that manually? No thank you. Digital tools are the future to unlocking the true potential of sustainability data, and this is a hill we at Pilario will die on.
So if you’re staring down ESPR, DPPs, PPWR, and the Green Claims Directive thinking, “I cannot humanly do all of this,” you’re not wrong. You just need the right system in place to not implode under the weight of regulatory paperwork.
Your move
We hope this short guide will help you swim across the regulatory tsunami that is headed our way. If you want sustainability data that’s audit-proof, regulation-ready, supplier-friendly, and doesn’t require sacrificing your weekends to Excel, Pilario can help.
