The life cycle approach is clearly promoted in the European directives in general and in the European White Paper on Integrated Product Policy. According to the European commission definition, "the Integrated Product Policy (IPP) is an approach that begins by asking how the environmental performance of products can be improved most cost-effectively. It is founded on the consideration of the impacts of products throughout their life-cycle, from the natural resources from which they come, through their use and marketing to their eventual disposal as waste. It is also a relatively new approach to environmental policy."

In the United States, the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a federal program that encourages and assists the US federal government, the single largest consumer of goods and services in the US, in the purchasing of environmentally preferable products and services. The EPA is currently assessing how life cycle analysis could help put EPP into practice for some categories of products.

Ecobilan collaborates with industry and government bodies (including European ones) to set green purchasing methodologies and practices. Our methods are applied to assist industry in the implementation of best practices.