Cradle to Gate

Andrea Paulillo

Chapter 28 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, 2026, pp 94-95 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Cradle to Gate refers to a type of system boundary used in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and other life cycle-based methodologies. The “cradle” represents the phase of extraction of raw materials (e.g. minerals or fossil fuels) whilst the “gate” typically refers to the manufacturing of the finished product that is being assessed. Cradle to Gate is therefore a “partial” system boundary because it only accounts for part of the life cycle of the product, with the use and end-of-life phases being excluded. A Cradle to Gate system boundary is appropriate for comparative analyses aimed at identifying environmentally preferable products when the part of the life cycle after the product manufacturing is identical across the products being compared. A Cradle to Gate boundary may also be used for hot-spot analysis when the excluded life cycle phases are known to have negligible contributions to the overall impacts.

Keywords: Goal and Scope Definition; Cut-off; Well to Tank; Cradle to Site; Inventory datasets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035309887
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035309894.00033 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22215_28

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().