Towards accounting for the life cycle Natural Capital Footprint of products and processes

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has emerged as a widely used methodology for quantifying the environmental impacts of products and processes, particularly in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. However, conventional LCA frameworks fall short in capturing the degradation of natural capital—the ecosystems, resources, and services that underpin human well-being and economic resilience. This thesis proposes an expanded framework, Ecosystem Services Life Cycle Assessment (ES-LCA), which integrates the economic valuation of ecosystem services (ES) into the standard LCA structure. By doing so, the ES-LCA method enables quantification of the "natural capital footprint" of human activities across spatial and temporal scales, offering a more holistic and system-wide perspective on sustainability impacts. Central to this framework is the concept of regionalised LCA, which is refined and operationalised to support spatially explicit natural capital assessments. The thesis develops a practical methodology that couples spatial data on ecosystem service provision with economic valuation metrics, ensuring compatibility with existing LCA methods and databases. Two case studies illustrate the method’s applicability and provide valuable insights. The first applies ES-LCA to a UK-based solar photovoltaic farm, revealing previously unaccounted-for indirect impacts on global ecosystem services throughout the supply chain. The second case study evaluates a circular urban material flow system, modelling the difference in embodied natural capital between linear and circular construction material scenarios in a UK city. The assessment quantifies in-use stocks, material flows, and ecosystem service impacts, showing that increased material circularity significantly reduces upstream degradation of the ES. The study highlights how embedding ES valuation into urban planning can support nature-positive development strategies. The findings underscore the potential of ES-LCA to inform sustainable decision-making by highlighting ecosystem burdens that are often overlooked in traditional assessments. By capturing trade-offs between environmental efficiency and ecosystem degradation, the ES-LCA framework advances the frontier of life cycle sustainability analysis. Moreover, it offers a decision-support tool for policymakers and practitioners seeking to integrate natural capital accounting into product design, infrastructure development, and circular economy strategies. This work contributes a novel, spatially resolved approach to linking environmental assessment with ecosystem-based management and sustainability transitions.<p></p>