Beyond compliance in legislation-driven life cycle assessment: a cross-case analysis of building-specific LCA practices within four Swedish building companies between 2017 and 2025

Journal article, 2026

Despite increasing popularity of LCA in policy circles, few empirical studies aim to understand how legislative developments influence existing LCA-based practices within targeted organisations. This paper examines the development of building-specific LCA practices at four Swedish building companies between 2017 and 2025, a period in which legal requirements for building climate declarations were introduced. The results show a remarkable increase in the volume and variety of LCA-based practices in building projects. The studied cases successfully moved beyond legal compliance by carrying multiple LCA-based practices in parallel. The importance of multiple LCA-based practices for sustainable building implies that caution is advised when developing novel LCA-oriented legislation. Stricter regulations may have unintended negative effects on sustainable building when the capacity of organisations to align LCA use with other legitimate concerns in building projects is stifled. Paying closer attention to the effects of legal requirements on existing LCA-based practices is therefore recommended.