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LCA as standardized methodology offers information which is very helpful besides the environmental analysis. The strategic management system in companies needs enormous amounts of different types of information to realize corporate risks and chances in very early stages. The following approach combines the approved methodology of LCA, which mostly is used as an operative tool, with strategic economic models from the market perspective. This leads to an interdisciplinary model for strategic risk management which is a completely new field of application for LCA and an also new, efficient way of generation and structure of information.

One of the problems of a LCA is the complexity of the considered systems. Results depending strongly on the boundary conditions. More appropriate is to parameterise the LCA and enable it for variations. With that, the Life Cycle Modeling and Simulation leads to a deeper understanding of the examined system. Design parameters, like the geometry or the material of the part can be varied as well as the mass and energy flow in the process chain or methodological parameters. This is especially necessary in the early stage of the design process as a tool for sensitivity analysis and optimisation of products. A dominance analysis ensures that the complexity of the model is suitable for goal and scope of the study.

Total Life Cycle studies of systems like automotive parts, systems or entire vehicles are characterized by an enormous complexity and amounts of individual data points. A full assessment of this variety of information and data requires suitable and reliable data processing systems. The recently developed software system GaBi 3 allows the flexible modeling of life cycles with parameterized process modules. In this way GaBi 3 provides the basis for parameter variation and scenario analysis. Besides these essential elements for identifying improvement potentials, the system enlarges the environmental calculations by an economic and a technical dimension.

An important cornerstone of our society is the individual mobility which, today, chiefly can only be offered by the automobile. However, in the industrial countries the car at the same time is exposed to harsh criticism as far as environmental pollution is discussed. Goal of this presentation is to show a scientific method by means of which environmental loads during manufacture, use and utilization/disposal of whole systems - in this special case vehicles - can be quantified and optimized. In order to do this, the instrument of life cycle analysis of parts and processes is used and in the same way the scientific method is developed beyond the level of literature. Due to these modifications the results are only useful if the boundary conditions are mentioned in detail. Considerations on the system such as the examination of an automobile require a method extended by essential criteria due to its complexity.