Outsource, hybrid or in-house? Decide how your company runs LCA
A free 6-step framework for manufacturers: what LCA work to buy, what to own, and what each option really costs.
Requests for product environmental data are growing faster than most LCA setups were built for.
One LCA every few years used to be enough. Now sales gets PCF requests in tenders, R&D wants to compare materials, procurement asks whether a supplier switch matters, and CSRD, CBAM and the Digital Product Passport keep adding to the list.
So the question lands on your desk: keep commissioning consultants, or build capability in-house? Most teams answer it by putting one consultant quote next to one training price. That leaves out the costs that actually decide the outcome: internal data-collection time, who owns the model, what updates cost, and how fast the business needs answers.
This framework puts those costs on the table, so you decide on evidence rather than the cheapest line item.
What you get, 100% FREE:
The 15-page decision workbook
A 3–5 year cost comparison table
An 11-point capability gap check
Bonus: a free LCA Capability Assessment call to go through your results
What a wrong call costs
Outsourcing when you should own it. You pay for every update, wait weeks for simple answers, and risk losing access to the model when your consultant changes. Your team still spends hours collecting data, because outsourcing doesn't remove that work.
Building in-house when you don't need to. You train people for work that comes once every few years, and the skills fade before the next project.
Hybrid is often the answer, but only when it's clear who owns what.
Any of these sets your LCA costs and capability for the next 3–5 years. Worth 15 pages of thinking first.
6 questions. One decision you can defend.
Workload: how much LCA work you'll really have in 1, 3 and 5 years
Purpose: a compliance result, or a tool R&D uses every week
Change: who updates the model when a supplier or material changes
Cost: outsource vs hybrid vs in-house, side by side over 3–5 years
Capability: what your team can do today, and the gap
Speed: whether your setup keeps up when every function starts asking
Found your gap? Here's how to close it.
The framework ends with a recommended model and a capability gap. What you do next depends on where you landed.
Still unsure, or between two options?
Bring your completed framework, or just the open questions, to a free LCA Capability Assessment.
We’ll go through your demand, your options and your gaps. If outsourcing is the better fit, we’ll tell you.
Leaning hybrid or in-house?
Hands-on LCA Training takes your team from theory to a completed LCA project, taught with Dr. Gregory Norris and with the software included.
Explore the Hands-on LCA Training syllabus
