Sustainability Excellence Associate (SEA) and Sustainability Excellence Professional (SEP) · International · Green Business Certification Inc., with the International Society of Sustainability Professionals as education partner
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersQuantifying the environmental impacts of a product from cradle to grave under ISO 14040 and 14044: goal and scope, inventory, impact assessment and interpretation, with the agricultural complications of multifunctionality, land use and biogenic carbon.
In the exams: GATE ES Section 9 (life cycle assessment); ACLCA LCACP; sustainability analyst and PhD research roles
How our questions for Sustainability Excellence Associate and Sustainability Excellence Professional spread across the units of Life Cycle Assessment. Difficulty: 6 easy, 26 medium, 0 hard.
| Carbon footprint of products (ISO 14067) and PEF | 7 | |
| Social LCA and life cycle costing | 6 | |
| Goal and scope: functional unit, system boundary, cut-off | 3 | |
| Agricultural LCA: field emissions models and databases | 3 | |
| Allocation and system expansion for multifunctional processes | 2 | |
| Attributional versus consequential LCA | 2 | |
| Biogenic carbon and land-use change in LCA | 2 | |
| Interpretation, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis | 2 | |
| Life cycle inventory: foreground and background data | 1 | |
| Life cycle impact assessment methods and midpoint and endpoint indicators | 1 | |
| Climate change, eutrophication, acidification, water and land-use categories | 1 | |
| Environmental product declarations and critical review | 1 | |
| Life cycle thinking and the ISO 14040/14044 framework | 1 |
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
An analyst uses a fertiliser dataset from a database for a country where ammonia is made from natural gas, but the fertiliser is actually produced in a country using coal-based ammonia. Which data quality indicator is compromised?
D. Geographical and technological representativeness
The dataset represents the wrong region and the wrong production technology, and nitrogen fertiliser footprints differ markedly between gas- and coal-based ammonia. Nothing in the scenario concerns data age, foreground completeness or yield measurement.
Further reading: ISO 14044:2006, 4.2.3.6
Crushing soybeans yields 0.79 kg meal (price 0.40 per kg) and 0.19 kg oil (price 1.00 per kg) per kg of beans. What share of the crushing burden goes to the oil under economic allocation?
C. 37.5 %
Revenue: meal 0.79 × 0.40 = 0.316; oil 0.19 × 1.00 = 0.190; oil share = 0.190/0.506 = 37.5 %. 19.4 % is the mass share; 62.5 % is the meal's economic share; 71.4 % uses unit prices alone without quantities.
A dairy farm sells 8000 kg milk at 0.40 per kg and 300 kg live-weight cull meat at 2.00 per kg in a year. What fraction of farm emissions does milk receive under economic allocation?
B. 84.2 %
Milk revenue = 8000 × 0.40 = 3200; meat = 300 × 2.00 = 600; milk share = 3200/3800 = 84.2 %. Mass allocation gives 96.4 %; 15.8 % is the meat share; 50 % ignores both mass and value.
Forest converted to soybean 8 years ago lost 150 t C/ha. Using 20-year linear amortisation and a yield of 2.5 t/ha, what is the dLUC emission per kg of soybean?
C. 11.0 kg CO2/kg
CO2 = 150 × 44/12 = 550 t/ha; ÷ 20 years = 27.5 t/ha/yr; ÷ 2500 kg = 11.0 kg CO2/kg. Omitting 44/12 gives 3.0; not amortising gives 220; dividing by the 8 years elapsed instead of the 20-year period gives 27.5.
Further reading: IPCC 2006 Guidelines; ISO 14067:2018
Broilers convert 1.8 kg feed per kg live weight. Feed has a footprint of 0.60 kg CO2-eq/kg, and on-farm emissions (housing energy, manure) add 0.30 kg CO2-eq per kg live weight. What is the footprint per kg live weight?
B. 1.38 kg CO2-eq
Feed = 1.8 × 0.60 = 1.08; total = 1.08 + 0.30 = 1.38 kg CO2-eq per kg live weight. 0.90 ignores the feed conversion ratio; 1.08 omits on-farm emissions; 1.62 wrongly multiplies on-farm emissions by the FCR as well.
An analyst combines a crop dataset from one national agri-food database with fertiliser and energy data from a different international database. What is the main risk?
C. Inconsistent allocation rules, boundaries and emission models between the databases
Databases differ in their allocation conventions, system boundaries and field emission models, so mixing them can make results inconsistent; it is a classic consistency problem. There is no dataset limit, double counting of biogenic carbon is not automatic, and databases report per reference unit.
Further reading: Hauschild et al., Life Cycle Assessment: Theory and Practice
Under ISO 14067, how must emissions from direct land-use change be treated?
D. Included in the CFP and documented separately
dLUC emissions are included in the CFP (assessed under IPCC methods, amortised over 20 years) and reported separately for transparency. They are not limited to biofuels, the period is 20 years not 5, and netting against other farms is not allowed.
Further reading: ISO 14067:2018
A packaging claim reading 'made with 30 % recycled content', made by the manufacturer without third-party certification, is which type of label?
C. Type II self-declared environmental claim
Self-declared claims such as recycled content or compostability are Type II (ISO 14021). Type I requires third-party certification against criteria; Type III is a quantified LCA-based declaration; a carbon footprint label reports CO2-eq.
Further reading: ISO 14021
A solar irrigation pump costs 5000 now and saves 900 a year in diesel for 8 years. At an 8 % discount rate, what is the net present value?
D. 172
Annuity factor = Σ 1/1.08^t for t = 1 to 8 = 5.7466; PV of savings = 900 × 5.7466 = 5172; NPV = 5172 − 5000 = 172. 2200 ignores discounting; 5172 forgets the investment; -1110 discounts all savings as if they arrived in year 8.
A social hotspot screening of a cocoa supply chain is usually done first with which data?
A. Generic sector-country risk data, before site-specific audits of the hotspots
Screening uses generic sector-country databases to find where risks such as child labour or low wages are likely, then focuses site-specific data collection on those hotspots. Auditing every farm first is impractical, and carbon or sales data do not indicate social risk.
Further reading: UNEP, Guidelines for S-LCA, 2020
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