Lifecycle Assessment, or LCA, is a method for measuring the environmental impact of a product or system across its full life: raw material extraction, manufacturing, transport, use, maintenance, and final disposal or reuse. In cyber security, LCA matters because digital infrastructure is physical infrastructure. Servers, storage arrays, batteries, cooling units, and networking gear all consume materials and energy, and all eventually become waste.
LCA helps organizations compare designs and procurement choices, such as longer-lived hardware, refurbishment, or take-back programs. It also supports secure decommissioning decisions, because retired equipment may still contain data, firmware, credentials, or configuration details. Attackers can target poor disposal processes to recover sensitive material from discarded drives or unmanaged hardware. Defenders use LCA-informed planning to reduce waste, improve asset tracking, and ensure that retirement workflows include verified wiping, chain of custody, and compliant recycling or reuse.