When is a Spade not (only) a Spade? When it’s an Environmental Management Tool

This paper shows how Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), an environmental management technique, is constructed and mobilized in relation to a diverse range of interests and agendas that extend beyond the assessment of environmental impacts of products and processes. The paper argues that this political dimension of LCA is largely obscured by the dominant framing of the technique as ‘scientific’, ‘objective’ and ‘valuefree’. Characterization of LCA in this way, the paper suggests, is the result of deep-seated epistemological commitments of LCA professionals on the one hand and a desire to promote and establish the technique within business and policy cultures on the other. This argument is supported by an analysis of three texts that seek to promote LCA to different audiences. Through this analysis, the paper draws attention to the way that the rhetoric of ‘science’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘value-neutrality’ functions as a political resource. The principal implication arising from this finding is that the particular kinds of politics embodied within LCA need to be understood if use of the technique is to contribute positively to improved environmental performance.