In 1996, the ISO for LCA was first launched, entitled ISO 14040:1996 (Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework), which was later updated in 2006. The establishment of the ISO is presumably due to the high variability of the LCA frameworks employed by researchers at the beginning of the emergence of LCA science.

The illustration shows the LCA framework based on ISO 14040: 2006. Under these principles, one must carry out LCA studies through four predetermined stages: (1) goal and scope definition (2) inventory analysis (3) impact assessment (4) interpretation.

There are currently at least two basic ISOs for LCA :

• ISO 14040:2006 (Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework)
• ISO 14044:2006 (Environmental management – Life cycle assessment – Requirements and guidelines)

Where both of them have been adopted to SNI:

• SNI ISO 14040:2016 (Manajemen lingkungan — Penilaian daur hidup — Prinsip dan kerangka kerja)
• SNI ISO 14044:2017 (Manajemen lingkungan – Penilaian daur hidup – Persyaratan dan panduan)