Life Cycle Assessment Certified Professional (LCACP)

USA / international · American Center for Life Cycle Assessment · specialist

107practice questions written to this syllabus
4subjects

Format

Education and work-experience requirements plus an exam; recertification every three years. Exam length was not stated on the page read.

Sections

Over the years

The ACLCA site was read and confirms the LCACP requires education, work experience and an exam, with recertification every 3 years. Section list is from general knowledge of LCA practice. The only LCA-specific certification in this catalogue.

Official source: https://aclca.org/

Subjects this exam draws on

Agricultural Water Conservation, Water Footprint & Governance2 questionsLivestock & the Environment1 questionsLife Cycle Assessment101 questionsCarbon Accounting & Greenhouse Gas Inventories3 questions

Five practice questions, worked

Original questions written to this exam's published syllabus and pattern. Not past papers.

1. A crop evapotranspires 300 mm of rainwater and yields 4 t/ha. What is its green water footprint?

  1. 0.75 m3/t
  2. 12,000 m3/t
  3. 75 m3/t
  4. 750 m3/t
Answer and working

D. 750 m3/t

300 mm = 3,000 m3/ha; / 4 t = 750 m3/t. Using mm directly gives 75.

Agricultural Water Conservation, Water Footprint & Governance · Water footprint: green, blue and grey water

2. A dairy farm emits 1,200 t CO2e and sells 1,000 t FPCM and 20 t liveweight. Using IDF biophysical allocation (AF_milk = 1 - 6.04 x meat/milk), what is the milk footprint per kg FPCM?

  1. 1.20 kg CO2e
  2. 1.06 kg CO2e
  3. 0.145 kg CO2e
  4. 1.18 kg CO2e
Answer and working

B. 1.06 kg CO2e

AF = 1 - 6.04 x 0.02 = 0.879; milk = 1,200 x 0.879 = 1,055 t / 1,000 t = 1.06. 1.20 allocates everything to milk; 1.18 uses mass allocation; 0.145 is the meat share.

Livestock & the Environment · Life-cycle footprints of animal products

3. According to ISO 14040, which of the following is a 'direct application' that lies outside the LCA framework itself?

  1. Product development and improvement
  2. Life cycle inventory analysis of unit processes
  3. Classification of inventory results into impact categories
  4. Completeness, sensitivity and consistency checks
Answer and working

A. Product development and improvement

ISO 14040 places product development and improvement, strategic planning, public policy making and marketing outside the framework as direct applications. Inventory analysis, classification (part of impact assessment) and the evaluation checks (part of interpretation) are inside the framework.

Life Cycle Assessment · Life cycle thinking and the ISO 14040/14044 framework

4. A retailer sums its suppliers' Scope 1 emissions with its own and finds the national food-sector total is 'exceeded'. Which explanation is correct?

  1. The retailer should subtract its suppliers' Scope 1 from its own Scope 1 to remove the double counting
  2. Scope 3 totals must be divided by the number of companies in the chain before they can be reported publicly
  3. The suppliers must be mis-reporting, because each tonne may appear in only one company's inventory worldwide
  4. Scope 3 double counting between companies is expected, because each reports emissions across its own value chain
Answer and working

D. Scope 3 double counting between companies is expected, because each reports emissions across its own value chain

By design, one company's Scope 1 is another's Scope 3, so sums across companies exceed physical totals. Double counting within a single inventory is an error; across inventories it is how value-chain responsibility works. There is no divide-by-chain rule, and subtracting suppliers' emissions from one's own Scope 1 is meaningless.

Carbon Accounting & Greenhouse Gas Inventories · Scope 3 categories and supply-chain emissions

5. For a dairy farmer's own LCA, which process belongs to the background system?

  1. Production of the purchased mineral fertiliser at a distant factory
  2. Feeding of the farmer's own herd with home-grown silage
  3. Storage of manure in the farm's own slurry tank
  4. Diesel use by the farm's own tractors for silage harvest
Answer and working

A. Production of the purchased mineral fertiliser at a distant factory

The foreground covers processes the decision maker controls or can specify (herd, silage feeding, manure storage, own field operations) and is modelled with primary data. Generic market processes such as fertiliser manufacture are background and are taken from LCI databases.

Life Cycle Assessment · Life cycle inventory: foreground and background data

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