With rising complexity of environmental concerns and increasingly refined environmental management requirements,there are growing needs to conduct life cycle assessments for upgrading the industrial structure and shifting the economic development mode.The industrial life cycle assessment ( ILCA) based on product life cycle assessment was conducted and supplemented with the following contents: ( 1) The function unit and system boundary were defined as one single product or process unit as far as possible based ondisassembly and combination'approach;( 2) Data collection included data accuracy assessment and integration into an industry-level database;( 3) Data accuracy was verified by uncertainty analysis.The crystalline silicon photovoltaic cell industry was taken as a case study.The results showed that the crystalline silicon photovoltaic industry was separated into four production units and eleven technique units.The data of mass and energy inputs and environmental emissions were collected based on the above production and technique units.After data accuracy assessment,a data inventory of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cell industry was obtained from data integration.The life cycle environmental impacts of the crystalline silicon photovoltaic cell industry main came from respiratory system impacts ( 41.94%),fossil fuels ( 25.20%),carcinogens ( 14.89%) and climate change ( 8.80%) categories.Raw material reduction and energy savings were the primary pathways to decreasing the environmental impacts,especially decreasing electricity consumption in solar-grade silicon,wafer and cell production;solder in panel production;silicon carbide in wafer production;and aluminum alloy in panel production.Uncertainty analysis using a Monte-Carlo simulation revealed that the highest uncertainty was in solar-grade silicon production;this finding was in accordance with the results of data accuracy assessment in data collection.These case application results showed that ILCA can improve LCA from product-level to industry-level,which can provide scientific information for policy-making for the development of national industry.