How to Get Certified in LCA?
This guide explains how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) certification works, including the ACLCA’s Certified Life Cycle Executive (CLE) credential, prerequisites, exam format, and how to prepare effectively.
If you’ve ever felt unsure where to even start with LCA certification, you’re not alone. The good news is that there’s now a clear and structured way to get there. Many professionals reach a point where they want something that proves their sustainability knowledge, a credential that shows they can connect data to real-world impact.
Maybe you’re already leading sustainability work in your company, or you’re the first person in your team diving into LCA and need structure for your learning.
Either way, certification helps you turn that curiosity into confidence and credibility.
Why getting certified matters
Certification shows that your knowledge isn’t just theoretical. It’s recognised, structured, and benchmarked against international standards.
People usually decide to get certified because they want to:
Build career credibility with an official credential
Communicate LCA results confidently in meetings and reports
Stand out in roles where sustainability expertise is growing in demand
Bring clarity and structure to self-taught LCA knowledge
Meet role or company requirements where certification is part of professional expectations
But where do you start?
Meet ACLCA, the global authority in LCA certification
The American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA) is the only global organisation that certifies LCA professionals.
They have been a trusted voice in the field for decades, setting the standards for LCA education, ethics, and practice.
ACLCA offers several certification levels for professionals at different stages of their LCA journey, including entry-level and advanced options. You can find more information about all of them on ACLCA’s official certification page.
If you want a credential that is respected by companies, universities, and sustainability professionals around the world, the Certified Life Cycle Executive (CLE) is the one to know.
The Certified Life Cycle Executive (CLE) explained
The CLE certification recognises professionals who understand, interpret, and communicate LCA results. It is ideal for people who manage or apply LCA studies, even if they do not perform the calculations themselves.
It is especially useful for:
Sustainability and environmental managers
Architects and product designers
Procurement and supply chain professionals
Educators and researchers
Anyone who commissions or applies LCA studies
Holding this certification demonstrates that you can:
✅ Understand the fundamentals of LCA and life cycle thinking
✅ Interpret and communicate results accurately
✅ Integrate LCA insights into product development and strategy
The CLE certification follows the ISO 17024 standard, which ensures international recognition and consistent quality across accredited professional certifications.
The certification process and LCA certification requirements, step by step
To get started, it helps to understand the main LCA certification requirements and the steps involved in applying for the CLE credential.
1. Check the prerequisites
You qualify if you meet one of the following:
A Master’s or post-graduate degree and two or more years working on sustainability initiatives, or
An undergraduate degree and four or more years of relevant experience
Plus, an active ACLCA membership
You will also need to upload:
A copy of your degree or transcript
Your résumé or CV showing professional experience in sustainability
For the most up-to-date information on prerequisites or membership requirements, visit the official ACLCA certification page.
2. Take the LCA certification exam
The CLE exam is a 1-hour online proctored test with 100 multiple-choice questions.
It covers the essentials of LCA, including:
What LCA can and cannot do
Key ISO standards (14040, 14044, 14025, and others)
System boundaries and functional units
Data quality, uncertainty, and review requirements
Ethics and emerging sustainability topics
The exam is scheduled flexibly to fit your time zone, and you will coordinate the date directly with ACLCA after registration.
3. Certification cost
The one-time certification fee is around 500 USD (approximately 435 EUR), plus an active ACLCA membership. Fees may vary over time, so it’s always best to check the current cost directly on the ACLCA certification page before applying.
How to prepare for the CLE certification
Most people who start preparing for the CLE quickly realise that the hardest part is not the content itself. It is knowing where to start and what to focus on.
There is a lot of academic material available, and studying alone can feel confusing and time-consuming.
That is why we created LCA Made Simple, a 5-hour online course built in collaboration with ACLCA, specifically designed to match the CLE certification level.
It gives you a clear structure to understand everything the exam covers without getting lost in technical details.
Inside the course, you will find:
🎓 Short video lessons that explain LCA concepts clearly
📘 The Power of LCA e-book and other downloadable resources as your reference library
🧠 Practice exercises to test your understanding
💬 Real examples of how LCA is applied in business decisions
❓ A live Q&A session with the instructors to discuss your questions and insights
The course is fully online, delivered in English, and designed for flexible self-paced study so you can learn whenever it suits you best.
It helps you build confidence, understand the key ISO standards, and communicate results effectively, which are the core skills the CLE certification tests.
📄 Download the full syllabus
What others say about learning LCA
Over 200 professionals have already completed our earlier version of this course, giving it a 4.6⭐ Trustpilot rating.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“I was very impressed by the quality of the course. It simplifies complex ideas from life cycle thinking and LCA and explains them in a clear way to enable anyone to understand them. I can see this being especially valuable for organizations building broad LCA understanding—particularly at the management level.”
– Dan, UK
Many professionals describe how the course helped them turn LCA from a complex concept into something practical they can confidently use in their work.
If you want to see more feedback or share your own experience, visit our Trustpilot page.
If you want to take a closer look at what’s included, you can download the full course syllabus here.
