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Life cycle assessment of agricultural products

This research area focuses on developing and improving methods for life cycle assessment of food and other bio-based products. Life cycle assessment is a central part of EU’s integrated environmental policy that deals with being able to connect environmental effects to the production and consumption of individual products with the aim of identifying potentials for improvement in the whole chain. Life cycle assessment is also incorporated in many companies' development strategy for improving their environmental profile.

With regard to biobased products, agriculture plays a very important role for a product's total environmental impact and our focus is on improving the basis on which this can included as well as possible. This includes finding practical methods for acquiring the necessary data and improving the methods for including agricultural aspects in environmental analyses.

Apart from greenhouse gas emissions other important areas of action are quantification of changes in soil carbon, biodiversity, ecotoxicity, and water consumption. We collaborate with commercial companies on performing life cycle analyses of the whole chain and, with regard to food, work on comparing nutritional value with environmental impact.