The increasing utilization of life cycle thinking in corporate and government programs for sustainability creates an important focus on the nature of life cycle information. Life cycle has three stages, life cycle inventory, life cycle impact assessment, and life cycle action. These all build on the core information utilized in the life cycle inventories. In addition, the expansion of life cycle analysis, as an engineering tool, also depends on the availability of life cycle inventory (lci) data. This presentation will address some operational definitions of life cycle inventory quality, related to the use and review of such information. The current methods for collecting lci data are reviewed. We conclude that the future growth of life cycle as a tool for product improvement depends on a shift in the publication and quality of the core information used in such studies. This abstract covers material also to be presented at the 4th Global Conference on Sustainable Product Development and Life Cycle Engineering.