What does the SimaPro acquisition mean? What is the future direction for LCA tools?
【SSBTi Excerpt】：Original: CPCD Community | CPCD Community | November 3, 2025 17:00 Guangdong
Questions
30 years ago, how did LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) evolve from a "designer's simple question" to "European compliance"? What are SimaPro's characteristics? Are all LCA software tools similar? Why is SimaPro said to have an "academic style"? What does One Click LCA's acquisition of SimaPro mean? What is the impact on carbon footprint software? What is the future direction for LCA software? Why did "Yimi-yi" create a "simplified version" of an LCA platform?
Answers：
1. SimaPro's Origins: 30 years ago, how did LCA evolve from a "designer's simple question" to "European compliance"?
(1) The "Original Intent" of LCA Tools: Just wanting to answer "How can we measure eco?"
Every era has its unique background and opportunities. To look back at the birth of LCA and SimaPro, we need to go back over thirty years ago in Europe. SimaPro's founder is Mr. Mark Goedkoop, who was not from a traditional environmental background but was an industrial design engineer from Delft University of Technology. His original intent stemmed from a designer's simple question: "How can we measure eco?"
During his graduate studies, Mark tried to integrate environmental factors into design concepts from an "eco-design" perspective to identify problems and pain points. But he quickly found a huge bottleneck when trying to quantify a product's environmental impact—a lack of scientific, practical tools. At that time, although Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a methodology had been proposed since the 60s and garnered attention from professionals like the Club of Rome (founded in 1968, an international think tank), it remained purely theoretical. A designer's "environmental intuition" could not be translated into fact-based quantitative decisions.
It was this application-driven thinking that led him to found PRé Sustainability in 1990. In collaboration with the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University and with seed funding from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, he launched the SimaPro project. The name SimaPro itself reveals its goal, originating from the Dutch "Systematische Milieu Analyse van Producten," meaning "Systematic Environmental Analysis of Products." He hoped to transform complex LCA theory into a tool that was "easy to learn, easy to use, and practical." It gradually evolved from a simple prototype into professional software that could integrate the cumbersome calculations and chart analysis from Excel.
(2) Why did Europe urgently need LCA in the 1990s? From "end-of-pipe emissions" to "product management" and "avoiding pollution shifting."
SimaPro's birth coincided with an era of rapidly rising environmental awareness and regulatory policy in Europe. In the 1990s, Europe was no longer satisfied with just managing "end-of-pipe emissions" from factory smokestacks, because simple emissions management was insufficient. It easily led to "pollution shifting"—transferring air pollution to water or soil, shifting the burden from the production stage to upstream raw materials or downstream waste, or moving it from one country to another.
Against this backdrop, the EU's policy tools began to extend from the "facility level" to the "product level." The Single European Act (1987) first wrote environmental protection into its treaties, opening the institutional floodgates for EU-level environmental legislation. To prepare for the 1992 European Single Market and avoid trade barriers and a "race to the bottom" due to varying national environmental standards, unifying on higher-standard product environmental requirements became inevitable.
We saw the emergence of the EU Ecolabel (1992), the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (1994), and later the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive (1996)—a series of regulations emphasizing life-cycle thinking. The common thread in these policies was the demand for a systematic assessment of a product's entire life cycle to avoid "burden shifting."
SimaPro's emergence was a perfect combination of scientific ideals and business practice. It met the urgent need for quantitative assessment in product eco-design for companies like Philips, and it also aligned with the macro-trend of European policy shifting from end-of-pipe treatment to full life-cycle management. At the same time, the Ecoinvent database project, led by several Swiss federal research institutions, was initiated in the late 90s (with the first version released in 2003), providing a solid public data foundation for LCA calculations. The synergy between software and databases jointly promoted the implementation and popularization of the LCA methodology.
(3) Europe's "LCA Wars" of 30 years ago, does it sound familiar?
It's worth noting that the LCA field in the 90s also experienced "LCA Wars." As the methodology was not yet fully mature, differences in system boundaries, allocation methods, and data sources among various studies often led to contradictory conclusions for the same product (e.g., milk cartons vs. glass bottles), sparking intense academic and commercial debate. This debate actually fostered the maturation of LCA, leading to the creation of the ISO 14040 series of international standards and driving the iteration of software like SimaPro. For example, to address the subjectivity in impact assessment, PRé developed Eco-indicator 95, an innovative End-point method that aggregated complex environmental impacts into three damage indicators on human survival and the environment, which were easier for decision-makers to understand. SimaPro also pioneered the introduction of functions like Monte Carlo simulations to quantify and analyze data uncertainty.
SimaPro's birth was not the result of a single political event but the product of a designer's vision, corporate needs, the maturation of scientific methodology, and the broader context of the times. From the beginning, it stood from an application perspective, thinking about how to integrate environmental factors with product design and business decisions, laying the foundation for its development over the past thirty-plus years.
2. What are SimaPro's characteristics? Are all LCA software tools similar? Why is SimaPro said to have an "academic style"?
First, I want to say there's nothing uniquely "super" about SimaPro. There are many excellent LCA software tools in the world, whether it's Sphera GaBi or the open-source openLCA. Everyone is trying their best to integrate environmental factors into product decisions and working to advance Life Cycle Assessment. I personally have respect for all my peers.
(1) Persistence: A "Deep Bond" with global universities
But if we ask why SimaPro has gained such broad recognition globally, especially in academia and research, I think it might have done a few things right.
First, its long-term persistence and investment in academia and education. Over the years, SimaPro has always maintained close cooperation with universities and research institutions worldwide. In China, we have ongoing collaborations with over a hundred universities, and many students use SimaPro in their studies and research. This persistence has allowed it to build a deep foundation at the source of professional talent cultivation.
(2) Focus: Only doing "professional work," rejecting "superficial hype."
Second, its professional depth and scientific spirit. The SimaPro team, including our team in China, consists mostly of colleagues doing professional work, not the "superficial hype" stuff. This kind of patient accumulation is a key reason it has endured for over thirty years. A good example is its strategic partnership with the Ecoinvent database. Ecoinvent is also an organization focused on data research; almost all of its eighty-plus people are scientists, fully dedicated to processing, managing, and collecting data. SimaPro's R&D team is similarly focused on researching LCA methodology, rules, and standards, rather than purely data.
(3) The Core: "Transparency" is the soul of LCA
Third, and what I think is the most core point, is its transparency. SimaPro insists on being "open and frank." Everyone who uses this tool can clearly know the "hows and whys" of the analysis they perform. You can trace the source of every piece of data and understand the logic of every calculation model. When you face uncertainty in results or conduct sensitivity analysis, you know where the problem lies. This complete openness of models and data is crucial for us to truly understand LCA and cultivate critical thinking. Because only after in-depth understanding can one talk about simplification, innovation, and application. Many academics like using SimaPro, possibly for this very reason. It's more like a "high-performance car with a manual transmission"—offering high freedom, controllable details, and strong "playability." SimaPro has more of a "research flair" in parametric modeling, scenario analysis, and uncertainty analysis, offering greater flexibility.
It can be said that regardless of the LCA analysis software, they all follow the ISO 14040/14044 standards in their core methodology and can load mainstream databases like Ecoinvent. However, they have different emphases in workflow, interface philosophy, and ecosystem. There is no absolute superiority or inferiority; it depends more on the user's industry, needs, and preferences.
Facing increasingly specific and strict regulatory requirements, LCA software must evolve from a general calculation tool to a "solution platform" that can support specific industry and regulatory compliance. This requires the software not only to calculate accurately but also to calculate correctly (in line with rules) and to be efficiently integrated into a company's business processes. SimaPro's strategy is precisely to continuously adapt and deepen its capabilities in these vertical application areas while maintaining its core advantages of scientific rigor and transparency.
3. What does One Click LCA's acquisition of SimaPro mean? What is the impact on carbon footprint software? What is the future direction for LCA software?
One Click LCA's (OCL) acquisition of SimaPro is a very significant event in the LCA software field in recent years. To understand this acquisition, we must first look at the characteristics of these two companies. SimaPro's strength lies in its horizontal breadth, methodological depth, and professional expertise in the research field. It can support LCA research in almost all industries, including agriculture, textiles, electronics, and automotive. OCL, on the other hand, is a model of excellence in a vertical field; it is the undisputed number one in LCA applications for the global construction industry.
OCL's power lies in its deep integration with the construction industry's workflow, achieving a high degree of templating, automation, and compliance. It is very tightly integrated with global green building certification systems (like BREEAM, LEED), Building Information Modeling (BIM) software, and building product Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) databases. For practitioners in the construction industry, using OCL allows them to very efficiently complete building life-cycle carbon footprint or LCA assessments and meet various compliance requirements. Therefore, this acquisition is a horizontal merger of two companies that are very strong in different dimensions; it is the union of the "King of Vertical" and the "Horizontal Giant."
(1) Impact of the Acquisition: Will SimaPro disappear? What should users worry about?
The impact of this acquisition on SimaPro itself and its users can be viewed from several levels:
- On the SimaPro tool itself: SimaPro's brand, software, and team will continue to exist and operate independently. Its core positioning—professionalism, openness, and tool depth—will not change. Users can continue to use it just as before.
- On the business model: A more direct change is that SimaPro might shift from the traditional Perpetual License model to OCL's preferred Subscription model. This is mainly to unify the group's financial and management systems. From a user experience perspective, the subscription model might be better, as it ensures users continuously receive updates and services, avoiding the problem of outdated software versions.
- On strategic development: The strategic intent of this merger is very clear. OCL hopes to leverage SimaPro's deep accumulation in methodology and cross-industry applications to replicate its successful "verticalization, automation" model from the construction sector to other industries. One of the SimaPro CEO's important responsibilities now is to help OCL innovate in other vertical domains. If this strategy succeeds, the new combined company will become a heavyweight platform with deep solutions in multiple key industries.
(2) 3 Major Trends: Verticalization, Platformization, and the "Cautious" Application of AI
This acquisition also reveals several important future directions for LCA software development:
- First, verticalization and depth. LCA is moving from the "superficial factor calculation" stage to the "deep water zone." Future LCA software must delve deep into the value chains of specific industries, understand their unique business processes, technologies, and compliance needs, and provide "plug-and-play" solutions. OCL's success in the construction industry is the best proof. Creating this "value loop" will be the core of future competition.
- Second, platformization and ecosystem. The LCA industry is evolving from isolated "point tools" to integrated "platforms." Future platforms will need to connect the entire chain from "data collection—modeling & analysis—verification & disclosure—business decision." They will use mergers and acquisitions to build data and customer network effects, thereby expanding the user base and extending the application of LCA from a few experts to a broader range of people within a company, such as engineers, procurement staff, and category managers.
- Third, intelligentization and automation, especially with AI. The emergence of AI brings huge imaginative potential to the LCA field. It can be seen as a powerful auxiliary tool to improve efficiency in data processing, model creation, and report generation. For example, OCL already uses AI models extensively to process and map data. However, the application of AI must be very cautious. The core of LCA is fact-based quantitative analysis to support real change. If AI is misused, allowing it to invent data or reports (so-called "AI hallucination"), it completely deviates from LCA's original intent. Therefore, the future key is how to use AI correctly, maintaining scientific rigor while allowing it to empower LCA work where it adds the most value (e.g., data cleaning, pattern recognition, intelligent Bill of Materials (BOM) mapping).
- Fourth, usability and generalization. I strongly agree with the view that future LCA software should "leave the complexity encapsulated in the core, and give the simple interface to the user." The barrier to entry for LCA software is generally high right now; a non-expert can hardly become proficient without spending several months. With the development of AI and other technologies, the ideal LCA tool should allow non-professionals to get a reliable assessment result quickly with simple clicks. Only in this way can LCA truly move from enterprises to the public and meet broader societal needs. Of course, this "simplification" requires a massive professional team behind it to build rigorous yet flexible template-based models that integrate the demands of different stakeholders. This is precisely the direction OCL and our Yimi-yi platform are working towards.
But this "simplification" has prerequisites: First, it requires deep industry knowledge. When I did an LCA project as a student in 2004, it took half a year, like writing a thesis. Now, if the data is complete, it might only take 1 hour via the "Yimi-yi" platform. This is supported by a lot of industry knowledge (beyond just LCA knowledge) to build the simplification logic. Second, it must be based on "real demand," combined with application scenarios, and recognized by the market and standards. You can't just say you've made a simplification with many modular things, but then it's just for your own amusement, the market doesn't recognize it, standards can't verify it, and few people use it. That would be the wrong-headed product.
In summary, the future of LCA software is developing towards being more vertical, more integrated, more intelligent, and more user-friendly. The focus of competition is no longer just calculation functions, but who can better build an industry ecosystem and provide full-chain value from data to decision-making.
4. SimaPro's exclusive agent in China, "Yimi-yi": Why did we create a "simplified version" of an LCA platform?
(1) Complementary Positioning: SimaPro is a "manual-transmission supercar," Yimi-yi is an "automatic-transmission family car."
Our company (Shanghai Huanyi Environmental Technology Co., Ltd.) is the exclusive agent for SimaPro in China. The relationship between the Yimi-yi platform (independently developed by Shanghai Huanyi) and SimaPro can be understood as two complementary tools built for different market and user needs, while sharing the same underlying LCA logic and methodology. SimaPro is a highly professional, research-oriented desktop software. Its advantages are model transparency, powerful functions, and fine granularity, making it very suitable for in-depth research. But as mentioned, its learning curve is steep, and the barrier to entry is high for many Chinese companies that want to get assessment results quickly.
The Yimi-yi platform was born precisely to solve this pain point. The opportunity arose in 2016 when the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) began vigorously promoting green manufacturing and eco-design, setting a goal to create "100 green parks, 1,000 green factories, and 10,000 green design products." To complete the assessment of ten thousand green products, the time and education costs would be extremely high if every company had to learn SimaPro from scratch. At that time, applying for green factories and eco-design products required submitting an LCA report.
Based on this clear corporate and policy demand, we began to think about how to simplify and modularize the complex LCA process to allow companies to get started quickly. We found that the life cycle stages, inventory data, report formats, and chart interpretations of LCA could all be modularized. Thus, we developed the Yimi-yi online platform (http://www.1mi1.cn/), embedding these modules into it. Corporate users no longer need to manually build complex models or write reports. Through a guided interface and preset templates, they can efficiently complete the assessment. We opened this platform to more than 50 "Green Evaluation Centers" and consulting agencies, basically free of charge, to help companies quickly generate LCA reports that meet green design requirements (e.g., the GB/T 32161 standard).
(2) The Yimi-yi Advantage: Aligning with Chinese policy, reducing LCA reporting from "weeks" to "1 hour."
The core features and advantages of the Yimi-yi platform are:
- Highly aligned with China's national conditions and policy needs: The platform was designed from the start to serve China's green manufacturing, eco-design, and dual-carbon goals. It has built-in report templates that comply with the requirements of the MIIT, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and other departments, helping companies quickly meet compliance requirements for green factories, green products, and carbon footprint accounting.
- Usability and high efficiency: Through its modular, template-based design, the platform greatly lowers the barrier to LCA. With complete data, an LCA report that might have taken weeks or even months in the past can now be generated in as little as one hour via the Yimi-yi platform. This is especially important for SMEs that need to respond quickly to market and policy demands.
- B2B and industry-focused solutions: Our core is to serve businesses and industries. We can provide customized tool development based on enterprise needs. We have also built an ecosystem around the platform. For example, we recruit and train professional independent consultants and consulting agencies, because our own team of dozens cannot possibly serve thousands of companies across the country. Through this platform, these professional partners can help companies complete assessments more efficiently and economically, thereby growing the entire market pie and creating a virtuous cycle.
(3) Building the EPD China Platform to obtain a "one-stop" passport for international trade
During the same period, there was another driving factor: EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is an increasingly important "green passport" for international trade. We saw that demand for EPDs was growing rapidly, both in the EU market and for domestic Green Building 3-Star certification.
Building the EPD platform is a key focus for us, now and in the future. In 2019, we jointly launched the China EPD Promotion Center (EPD China) with several ministry-affiliated organizations, and it formally began operations in 2024. This is an independent non-profit institution aimed at providing Chinese companies with an EPD registration and publication platform that is aligned with international standards.
Currently, EPD China has made significant progress. We have established mutual recognition mechanisms with major international EPD program operators. For example, in the construction sector, EPDs registered through our platform are directly recognized by the EU market because our EPDs carry their recognized logo. In non-construction sectors, we have also signed mutual recognition agreements with EPD organizations in Norway, Italy, Australia, and other countries. This means that Chinese companies, through our platform, can get a "one-stop" key to multiple international markets.
We anticipate that as demand from exporting companies increases, the annual number of EPD registrations could reach hundreds or even more. To ensure the quality and credibility of EPDs, we have also brought in over a dozen well-known domestic and international certification bodies to the platform and established a strict review and elimination mechanism.
Looking ahead, the development of the Yimi-yi platform will focus more on "data" and "ecosystem." On one hand, we will continue to deepen our cooperation with domestic industries and government to support the construction of key industry databases. Our country has also released implementation plans for establishing a unified green product standard, certification, and labeling system, which includes database construction. As companies conduct EPD and carbon footprint assessments, they will generate a large amount of high-quality, publishable data. We hope this data can, in the future, feed back into localized databases like CPCD, raising the level of the entire nation's LCA data infrastructure. In this process, the Yimi-yi platform can play a key role in governing the data models and quality according to different rules and standards before the data is made public.
On the other hand, we will continue to expand our "circle of friends," cooperating with more consulting firms, certification bodies, industry associations, and community organizations like CPCD. Our goal is not to fight for short-term gains, but to look three to five years or even further ahead, to ensure that every product in China has comparable, analyzable, and traceable environmental data. When such a vast and active market is truly established, it will be a collective victory for all practitioners. We warmly welcome community forces like CPCD to join us and contribute to this goal together.
Comments
Mr. Gong Wanbin, as one of China's earliest experts in LCA research and market application, offers insights that are deeply inspiring. Through this Q&A, we can understand the true origin of LCA 30 years ago: it was not to solve trade issues, but from a simple demand for the environmental right-to-know. As LCA rose in Europe 30 years ago, it also faced debates over system boundaries and allocation methods (historically known as the LCA Wars), and we still face these problems today. Following Gabi's acquisition by Sphera, SimaPro has now also been acquired, seeming to signal that the LCA field is facing a major historical turning point. I feel this Q&A has already pointed to the direction of this turning point: in the future, LCA will no longer be just a niche professional field, but is moving towards platformization, popularization, and simplification. I love this quote: "Leave the complexity to the core, give the simplicity to the user."
Questions Raised by: CPCD User
Answered by: Gong Wanbin Founder and CEO, Yimi-yi Platform Initiator and Technical Committee Chairman, EPD Promotion Center General Manager, Shanghai Huanyi Environmental Technology Co., Ltd.
Text Editor: Tian Ye (CPCD Resident Author) Comments: CPCD Platform
