Online Microcredential in Business & Management

Life Cycle Assessment: A Practical Introduction

Learn how to measure the environmental impact of your product or service to help you successfully conduct a Life Cycle Assessment.

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Deakin UniversityDeakin University

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Gain the practical skills needed to carry out a Life Cycle Assessment

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is crucial for businesses to help increase resource efficiency and reduce environmental impacts and costs.

On this microcredential, you’ll gain practical skills to help you successfully complete a Life Cycle Assessment. These transferable skills can be applied across different contexts and industries, enabling you to understand the environmental performance of a variety of products and services.

By the end of this microcredential, you’ll be able to apply your strong foundation of knowledge towards becoming a certified or practising Life Cycle Assessment professional.

Learn how to help organisations improve their environmental performance

You’ll start by exploring different types of Life Cycle Assessments before learning how to map and design a flowchart to support the LCA of a product or service.

With this knowledge, you’ll be able to demonstrate the sustainability implications of products and support organisations in understanding their environmental performance and how to improve it.

Understand the importance of inventory analysis

Next, you’ll unpack the international guidelines, product-specific guidelines, and product rules in practice for LCA. You’ll also discover the importance of using inventory analysis and data collection in your impact assessments.

This exploration will ensure you’ll implement the correct Life Cycle Analysis methodologies and standards.

Learn how to present your Life Cycle Assessment results

You’ll then learn how to interpret and analyse LCA outcomes. Through this interpretation, you’ll also learn how to effectively present your results.

With this knowledge, you’ll be able to formulate a strategy for any business to improve its environmental performance.

Master LCA with Deakin University

Finally, you’ll explore project management within the context of LCA and the use of Gantt charts for project scoping.

Guided by the experts at Deakin University, you’ll develop key project management skills which are crucial for Life Cycle Assessment professionals.

By the end of this microcredential, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge and practical skills to successfully conduct an LCA and determine the environmental impact of any product or service.

How will Life Cycle Assessment skills help my career?

You’ll explore many different industry perspectives throughout the microcredential to help you understand how to use your sustainability skills across various contexts.

As well as this, you’ll learn a number of transferable skills such as sustainability appraisal, communication skills, critical analysis, and project management to use in a variety of roles to help you develop in your career.

How will I be assessed?

Throughout the course you will build an online portfolio containing elements of conducting a LCA. For your assessment you will create and submit a recorded video presentation and accompanying slides (not exceeding 15 slides/max 10 mins) that describes the analysis and findings of your LCA.

Will I receive university credits?

Upon successful completion of the microcredential and assessments, you’ll receive 0.5 Deakin Credit Points at a Postgraduate level from Deakin University.

You’ll also receive a statement of completion from FutureLearn and a digital certificate from Deakin University.

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Skip to 0 minutes and 9 seconds BUKKY TOKEDE: Life cycle assessment is of growing importance in the modern world. It provides a scientifically robust methodology to quantify environmental impact. It also provides meaningful insights on the sustainability impact and performance of products and services.

Skip to 0 minutes and 32 seconds Hi there. My name is Dr. Bukky Tokede, and I am a certified life cycle assessment practitioner. In this credit-bearing microcredential, we provide a practise-oriented approach that serves as a viable introduction for LCA. We draw from many real-life examples to ensure that this course provides a pathway to developing competencies in LCA that helps you in responding to the climate emergency we are facing all around the world. During the course, you will explore the synergies between life cycle assessment and other disruptive technological advances, such as artificial intelligence. We’ll highlight the critical skills needed for LCA practitioners in the modern world. Throughout the course, you will also benefit from discussing and engaging with other learners and their perspectives of LCA.

Skip to 1 minute and 32 seconds This course is expected to serve as a preparatory introduction to guide you in understanding what LCA is and how it is used across multiple industries in achieving a sustainable world. By completing this course, you will earn half a credit point that can be used towards a postgraduate degree at Deakin University. Now’s the time to join the course and start learning about life cycle assessment.

What skills will you learn?

  • Life Cycle Assessment
  • Sustainability
  • Project Management
  • Communication
  • Critical Analysis
  • Sustainability Appraisal

What you will achieve

By the end of the microcredential, you’ll be able to...

  • Describe the principles of the life cycle assessment of a product or service
  • Design a flowchart to support the life cycle assessment of a product or service
  • Conduct life cycle assessment of a product or service
  • Interpret and analyse life cycle assessment outcomes to formulate a strategy for improved environmental performance

Are you eligible for this microcredential?

You don’t need any prior experience to join this microcredential but it will be particularly beneficial for postgraduates who want to develop competencies and capabilities in sustainability industries.

Is this microcredential right for you?

This microcredential will help support graduate professionals to develop new careers or enhance existing careers.

Syllabus

What happens before, during, and after your microcredential

  • Before learning

    You’ll have access to the welcome area to introduce yourself and familiarise yourself with the microcredential structure and course materials.

  • Course

    From 18 Sep 2023

    Life Cycle Assessment: A Practical Introduction

    This course equips professionals with metrics and tools for responding to the climate emergency and ensuring a sustainable future.

    6 weeks

    10 hours per week

  • After learning

    You’ll receive a statement of completion from FutureLearn and digital certificate from Deakin University.

What you will receive

0.5 Deakin Credit Points at Postgraduate level from Deakin University

You’ll receive a digital Credly badge worth 0.5 postgraduate level credits. With these credits, you can build towards a degree from Deakin University.

Find out how credits work and where you can use them in our FAQs.

A Digital Badge from Deakin University and Credly

image ⬅️ Click this image to see more information about the digital badge you will receive upon successful completion, validated by Credly.



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Additional benefits

Complete your course within 6 weeks, including the assessment, or take extra time and use the regular assessment submission windows to complete within 20–26 weeks of your enrolment.

What is a microcredential?

Microcredentials are designed to upskill you for work in rapidly-growing industries, without the time and cost commitment of a full degree. Your microcredential can stand alone as an independent credential, and some also offer academic credit to use towards a degree.

Learn online with expert instructors

Complete online courses led by experts over multiple weeks with a dedicated group of professionals.

Complete project-based assessments

Test your understanding with online tutor-marked assessments and exercises.

Earn a professional credential

Finish your learning and pass your assessments to gain an accredited credential.

Advance further in your career

Use your microcredential as evidence of your specialised skills and progress further in your industry.

Career-focused learning by Deakin University

Deakin University is one of Australia’s largest universities with more than 61,000 students and over 15,000 online.

  • Established

    1974
  • Location

    Melbourne, Australia
  • World ranking

    Top 280Source: QS World University Rankings 2021

Delivered by experts

Professor Matthews has a multi-disciplinary construction background, holding a PhD in Architecture and post-graduate qualifications in mathematics, computing, and environmental studies.

I am a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University with research and teaching focus in Engineering, Architecture and Built Environment and licensed as a Life Cycle Certified Assessment Professional (LCACP).

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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"FutureLearn courses are always interesting and informative. They bring the classroom right to you and send you on a journey to explore new ideas and offer interesting topics."

When would you like to start?

We aim to run our microcredentials every few months. Join on the date that suits you or register to hear about future runs and updates.

  • Join by 27 Jan 2024 at 00:00This microcredential started 18 Sep 2023

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FAQ

We can accept payments made by card (Visa, Mastercard and American Express) or PayPal via our online system.

You will have 14 days from the day the course starts to apply for a refund. If this Microcredential has any non-refundable costs they will be stated in the ‘Overview’ section above. You can find more information in our cancellation and refund policy.

Microcredentials are designed to fit around your life and timezone.

There may be live events as part of your studies, but these will be recorded and can be watched afterwards if you aren’t online for the live broadcast.

No, microcredentials are designed to be taken anywhere in the world. You won’t need the right to study in the country where the university offering the microcredential is based.

Want to know more? Read the microcredential FAQs, or contact us.