Life-Cycle Assessment: the Holy Grail of Green Building It makes sense to begin any detailed discussion of evaluation systems with lifecycle assessment (LCA) because it is the most technical and comes closest to an objective scientific quantification of environmental impact. In this sense, it is considered the Holy Grail of green design, be it in building or manufacturing. It also supplies much of the scientific basis for other forms of evaluation, certification and labelling. LCA systematically tries to quantify all the resources used, and the releases emitted to the environment, through every stage of a products life cyclewith the goal of making improvements that will reduce these impacts.