Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)

There is no general international standard for life cycle cost analysis. Nevertheless, a sector specific ISO standard on life cycle costing is available, namely ISO 15686-5:2017(en) Buildings and constructed assets — Service life planning — Part 5: Life-cycle costing.

Life cycle costing (LCC) should not be confused with life cycle analysis (LCA). While the former addresses the economic elements of the product life cycle, the latter does the same for environmental and health impacts as well as the resource depletion issues associated with products or services over their entire life cycle. LCA is a scientific method internationally standardised in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044.