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Commercially available software tools are widely used to assist in conducting life cycle inventory, life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle impact analysis (LCIA), and design for the environment (DfE) studies. Five leading software tools, Boustead 4.2, GaBi 3.2, SimaPro 4.0, TEAM 3.0, and Toolkit, currently in use or under consideration by life cycle practitioners, were selected for testing, and a detailed evaluation scheme was used to evaluate the effectiveness of these tools for practical application in automotive life cycle studies. A consensus numerical score for each of 20 separate test criteria was assigned to each of the software packages under evaluation, and the total scores compared. On the basis of these scores, the authors chose GaBi version 3.2 as the LCA software package currently best suited for use by experienced life cycle practitioners in conducting environmental life cycle assessments in the automotive industry.