All human activity leaves an environmental footprint, and that is especially true for most kinds of businesses. However, there is no law of physics that says we can only do things that are negative for the environment. We also have the power to do good things – to make handprints.
Why Understanding Footprints Matters
Understanding our negative impacts – our footprint – is important. That can be assessed with scientific methods such as Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is a robust method for assessing multiple impacts on the environment. Those impacts include:
Global Warming
Biodiversity Loss
Water Scarcity
Depletion of Natural Resources
Direct impacts on Human Health
With LCA we can quantify what the negative impacts of our activities are, and what drives them, i.e. identify environmental hotspots. Based on these insights, we can make changes and reduce those impacts, to do less harm.
Doing less harm – reducing our footprint – is good, but it is not enough. We won’t save humanity and nature by continuing to do harm, just a little less.
What is a Handprint?
So how can we as individuals or as businesses have a positive impact on nature, i.e. a Handprint?
The concept of the environmental handprint was popularized and developed by Dr. Gregory Norris – who will be speaking at Impact Day on Thursday, October 9th 2025 at 16:00, on the Impact Stage – in 2008.
He recognized the need for a more optimistic and solution-oriented approach to sustainability, moving beyond just minimizing the “footprint” to also highlighting positive “handprint” impacts.
A handprint measures the good actions that organizations and people undertake to create positive effects on the environment and society
How LCA Helps Measure Handprints?
Environmental LCA is a methodology for assessing the environmental footprint of a system, but it can also be used for assessing handprints, i.e. the positive impacts of something we do.
Example 1: Tires If a tire manufacturer creates a tire that rolls with less resistance, it reduces the energy (fuel or electricity) consumption and related emissions of cars using that tire. This reduction is called a handprint. Producing a car tire will always have a footprint, but the company also creates a handprint through the downstream savings.
Example 2: Lighting solutions Upgrading to energy-efficient lighting in buildings requires manufacturing and installing new equipment (a footprint), but it also creates a handprint through reduced electricity consumption and lower environmental impacts from energy generation.
Example 3: Education and inspiration Education about sustainability – for example about LCA, which Environmental Impacts Academy specializes in – also clearly has an environmental handprint. Similarly, an event like Impact Day that inspires people to do more good for the environment is very likely to have a handprint.
Handprints as a Path Forward
A handprint is always comparative: it measures the difference between a new product, service, or practice and a baseline scenario without it.
It can cover several positive impacts, including:
Global Warming reductions
Health improvements from better air quality
Reduced water use
Natural resource preservation
Just like a footprint, a handprint can be assessed for any impact category that can be measured by LCA.
Want to learn how your business can measure and grow its handprint? Join Poul Lindqvist’s free webinar on September 25th: “Making a Handprint with LCA – How LCA can help your business make a positive impact, and prove it.”
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