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About Us

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What IERE is:

The Institute for Environmental Research and Education (IERE) is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 located in Washington State, with a global scope. Environmental issues have a direct effect on the financial well being of all people and organizations. We envision a world where everyday decisions integrate environmental facts and concerns as a matter of common sense.

IERE’s mission is to undertake and disseminate comprehensive, fact-based research for use in the development of responsible environmental policy, programs and decisions.

What we do:

IERE’s DNA is based on the relatively new science of life cycle assessment. LCA is the science of measuring the environmental impacts of products and services over their life cycle, from cradle to grave. Our flagship program is the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment, the professional society for LCA in America. Through ACLCA and our other educational and training programs, we are committed to our mission of publicly furthering comprehensive, fact-based research for use in environmentally responsible policy development.

We offer LCA-based ecolabels, through our Earthsure program. This kind of label is called a Type III environmental product declaration. It is like a nutrition label, only disclosing carbon footprints, water footprints, biodiversity and land use, fossil fuel depletion, toxicity and other environmental impact categories.

Through our Life Cycle Assessment program we also provide expertise in conducting streamlined and ISO Life Cycle Assessments, study verification services and communication support.

Life Cycle Communities is a relatively new program to IERE. It connects the cleanness of local utilities directly to economic growth of local communities, through the use of environmental product declarations.

IERE also provides leading research on a variety of issues surrounding environmental policy, the intersection of sustainability and business practices, environmental product labeling, energy independence, and much more.

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