Land use is a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can assess such threats and thereby support environmental decision-making. Within the Global Guidance... Show moreLand use is a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can assess such threats and thereby support environmental decision-making. Within the Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (GLAM) project, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by UN Environment aims to create a life cycle impact assessment method across multiple impact categories, including land use impacts on ecosystem quality represented by regional and global species richness. A working group of the GLAM project focused on such land use impacts and developed new characterization factors to combine the strengths of two separate recent advancements in the field: the consideration of land use intensities and land fragmentation. The data sets to parametrize the underlying model are also updated from previous models. The new characterization factors cover five species groups (plants, amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles) and five broad land use types (cropland, pasture, plantations, managed forests, and urban land) at three intensity levels (minimal, light, and intense). They are available at the level of terrestrial ecoregions and countries. This paper documents the development of the characterization factors, provides practical guidance for their use, and critically assesses the strengths and remaining shortcomings. Show less
Zhang, Z.; Huang, J.; Yao, Y.; Peters, G.; Macdonald, B.; La Rosa, A.D.; ... ; Scherer, L. 2023
Cotton — supplying approximately a quarter of global textile fibres — has various environmental impacts, including water use, toxicity, eutrophication and greenhouse gas emissions. In this Review,... Show moreCotton — supplying approximately a quarter of global textile fibres — has various environmental impacts, including water use, toxicity, eutrophication and greenhouse gas emissions. In this Review, we identify these impacts across multiple life cycle stages. Environmental impacts at the cultivation stage depend on levels of irrigation, pesticide and fertilizer applications. At the textile manufacturing stage, impacts depend on energy infrastructure and manufacturing technologies. At the use phase, impacts depend on consumer habits related to buying, washing, drying and ironing. Depending on the impact category and country, cotton cultivation, manufacturing or use can dominate such impacts. For example, the use phase dominates greenhouse gas emissions in countries with carbon-intensive energy grids. Use of alternative fibres has the potential to reduce these environmental impacts, particularly jute and flax, which have much lower water demands. Opportunities for farmers, manufacturers and consumers to improve the environmental sustainability of cotton textiles include, among others, improving water-use efficiency in agriculture, innovative recycling and laundering less frequently. Future cotton sustainability assessments are needed to fill data gaps related to developing and emerging countries, the number of uses of a cotton garment and further environmental impacts such as salinization, as well as socio-economic impacts.The supplementary information is available here: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs43017-023-00476-z/MediaObjects/43017_2023_476_MOESM1_ESM.pdf Show less
Large-scale offshore wind energy developments represent a major player in the energy transition but are likely to have (negative or positive) impacts on marine biodiversity. Wind turbine... Show moreLarge-scale offshore wind energy developments represent a major player in the energy transition but are likely to have (negative or positive) impacts on marine biodiversity. Wind turbine foundations and sour protection often replace soft sediment with hard substrates, creating artificial reefs for sessile dwellers. Offshore wind farm (OWF) furthermore leads to a decrease in (and even a cessation of) bottom trawling, as this activity is prohibited in many OWFs. The long-term cumulative impacts of these changes on marine biodiversity remain largely unknown. This study integrates such impacts into characterization factors for life cycle assessment based on the North Sea and illustrates its application. Our results suggest that there are no net adverse impacts during OWF operation on benthic communities inhabiting the original sand bottom within OWFs. Artificial reefs could lead to a doubling of species richness and a two-order-of-magnitude increase of species abundance. Seabed occupation will also incur in minor biodiversity losses in the soft sediment. Our results were not conclusive concerning the trawling avoidance benefits. The developed characterization factors quantifying biodiversity-related impacts from OWF operation provide a stepping stone toward a better representation of biodiversity in life cycle assessment. Show less
Boogaart, L. van den; Slabbekoorn, H.; Scherer, L. 2023
While wild pollinators play a key role in global food production, their assessment is currently missing from the most commonly used environmental impact assessment method, Life Cycle Assessment ... Show moreWhile wild pollinators play a key role in global food production, their assessment is currently missing from the most commonly used environmental impact assessment method, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This is mainly due to constraints in data availability and compatibility with LCA inventories. To target this gap, relative pollinator abundance estimates were obtained with the use of a Delphi assessment, during which 25 experts, covering 16 nationalities and 45 countries of expertise, provided scores for low, typical, and high expected abundance associated with 24 land use categories. Based on these estimates, this study presents a set of globally generic characterization factors (CFs) that allows translating land use into relative impacts to wild pollinator abundance. The associated uncertainty of the CFs is presented along with an illustrative case to demonstrate the applicability in LCA studies. The CFs based on estimates that reached consensus during the Delphi assessment are recommended as readily applicable and allow key differences among land use types to be distinguished. The resulting CFs are proposed as the first step for incorporating pollinator impacts in LCA studies, exemplifying the use of expert elicitation methods as a useful tool to fill data gaps that constrain the characterization of key environmental impacts. Show less
The Russia-Ukraine war has disrupted global food supply chains and driven food prices up in many parts of the world. This study applies a spatially explicit modelling approach to estimate the... Show moreThe Russia-Ukraine war has disrupted global food supply chains and driven food prices up in many parts of the world. This study applies a spatially explicit modelling approach to estimate the resilience and environmental co-benefits of a transition towards the EAT-Lancet's planetary health diets across Europe.Crises related to extreme weather events, COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have revealed serious problems in global food (inter)dependency. Here we demonstrate that a transition towards the EAT-Lancet's planetary health diet in the European Union and the United Kingdom alone would almost compensate for all production deficits from Russia and Ukraine while yielding improvements in blue water use (4.1 Gm(3) yr(-1)), greenhouse gas emissions (0.22 GtCO(2)e yr(-1)) and carbon sequestration (17.4 GtCO(2)e). Show less
Agriculture, especially the livestock sector, hugely stresses the environment through its climate change, land use, and water use impacts, among others. Hence, reducing meat consumption can greatly... Show moreAgriculture, especially the livestock sector, hugely stresses the environment through its climate change, land use, and water use impacts, among others. Hence, reducing meat consumption can greatly reduce agriculture’s heavy environmental burden. Meat replacements can deliver similar nutrients, and some even mimic meat to facilitate substitution. However, replacements come with their own environmental impacts, which can be highly uncertain, particularly for emerging replacements. This chapter synthesizes the environmental impacts of meat (poultry, pork, and beef) compared to conventional (seafood, eggs, tofu and tempeh, pulses, and nuts) and emerging (plant-based meat analogs, algae, mycoprotein, insects, and cultured meat) meat replacements. We compare their environmental impacts based on life cycle assessment and highlight impact hotspots, opportunities for improvement, and key research gaps. Overall, while conventional replacements already offer more sustainable alternatives to meat, emerging replacements often result in trade-offs that we can proactively tackle today to reduce environmental impacts in the future. Show less
Verones, F.; Kuipers, K.; Núnez, M.; Rosa, F.; Scherer, L.; Marques, A.; ... ; Dorber, M. 2022
Human activities put pressure on the natural environmental and the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (LCA) is becoming a more prevalent tool to assess the relevant environmental impacts from... Show moreHuman activities put pressure on the natural environmental and the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (LCA) is becoming a more prevalent tool to assess the relevant environmental impacts from products and processes on terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. The Global Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method (GLAM) project of the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by the UN Environment Programme aims at making recommendations for new impact assessment models (such as for land use, water consumption and eutrophication) and improving the consistency and comparability across impact categories. An important aspect to ensure the comparability of these categories across geographic regions is to identify and quantify the scale of impacts, i.e., distinguish if an impact to an area results in local species losses or global species extinctions. This distinction is of high relevance because a species lost at a local level may still exist in other regions of the world and could potentially reestablish in that area, whereas global extinctions are irreversible. A consistent approach to scale impacts from local to global scales is currently not implemented within the LCIA framework, but is crucial to appropriately consider potential biodiversity impacts across impact categories. Here we present an updated approach for calculating a scaling factor, called the Global Extinction Probability (GEP), and calculate it for more than 98 000 species in 20 species groups across marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. We also provide the GEPs for different spatial scales, such as grid cells, ecoregions or watersheds and country averages. We found that GEP varies over orders of magnitude across the world, emphasizing the relevance of considering the spatial dimension of such extinction probabilities. We recommend quantifying global extinctions based on local species loss by multiplying local species loss within a certain spatial unit with the GEP corresponding to the same spatial unit. GEPs harmonize the quantification of biodiversity impacts across impact categories, improving information to support environmental decision-making. Show less
Schulp, C.J.E.; Komossa, F.; Scherer, L.; Zanden, E.H. van der; Debolini, M.; Piorr, A. 2022
Peri-urban areas support a broad range of multifunctional demands for public goods. In northwest Europe, peri-urban areas tend to overlap with intensive agricultural land, resulting in conflicts... Show morePeri-urban areas support a broad range of multifunctional demands for public goods. In northwest Europe, peri-urban areas tend to overlap with intensive agricultural land, resulting in conflicts between agricultural use and the public good demands of residents. Sustainable intensification (SI) of agriculture might help reconcile agricultural and well-being goals, but it is unclear how the mix of actors in a peri-urban setting can trigger or restrain SI. In a Dutch case study, we explored how SI of agriculture can contribute to making peri-urban areas more sustainable, and which actors are key enabling factors for implementing SI. We used interviews, surveys, workshops, and empirical analysis to obtain insight into the stakeholder's vision of a sustainable future for the case study area, the farming system and actor network. We integrated these insights in a Bayesian Belief Network, where we linked the actor network to implementation of three SI measures (farm-level efficiency measures, small landscape elements, and direct sales), and used sensitivity analysis to model effects of support for implementation by different groups of actors. The case study has a dense stakeholder network, where, dependent on the SI measure, farmers are triggered by all actors to implement SI, or have a stronger role in uptake themselves. The sensitivity analysis suggested that the future preferred by the stakeholders requires broad support of all actors involved, with local actors without a formal role being essential for uptake. Overall, trade-offs among public goods are almost inevitable when taking up SI measures. Show less
Pfister, S.; Scherer, L.; Boulay, A.M.; Motoshita, M.; Núñez, M.; Damiani, M.; ... ; Berger, M. 2022
Nuts are considered an important protein source in sustainable dietary patterns but are seldom studied in detail. Here a multi-criteria decision analysis was used to rank 10 nuts and seeds against... Show moreNuts are considered an important protein source in sustainable dietary patterns but are seldom studied in detail. Here a multi-criteria decision analysis was used to rank 10 nuts and seeds against 11 environmental, nutritional, and social criteria and provide greater insight into the sustainability impacts of this food group. Weights were defined based on correlation and variance between indicator values, and values were aggregated with a partially non-compensatory method. Several sensitivity analyses tested various sources of uncertainty through the use of country-level data, the use of a fully compensatory aggregation method, and changes to criteria weights. Walnuts and sunflower seeds performed consistently well across sustainability criteria and were ranked in the top two positions in the baseline assessment and most sensitivity analyses. In contrast, cashews performed relatively poorly across most criteria, and were ranked last. Dietary shifts in favor of more sustainable nuts can improve the overall environmental, nutritional and social impacts of nut production and consumption by an average of 23%. Although increasing consumption of walnuts and sunflower seeds may lead to improved sustainability outcomes for total global nut consumption, more research is needed to deepen the understanding of the complex socio-economic factors impacting nut and seed sustainability. The social risk assessment method used in this study can also inform future social impact measurement methods for other food groups. Show less
Kok, D.D.; Scherer, L.; Vries, W. de; Trimbos, K.B.; Bodegom, P.M. van 2022
Our carbon-intensive economy has led to an average temperature rise of 1 °C since pre-industrial times. As a consequence, the world has seen increasing droughts, significant shrinking of the polar... Show moreOur carbon-intensive economy has led to an average temperature rise of 1 °C since pre-industrial times. As a consequence, the world has seen increasing droughts, significant shrinking of the polar ice caps, and steady sea-level rise. To stall these issues’ worsening further, we must limit global warming to 1.5 °C. In addition to the economy’s decarbonization, this endeavour requires the use of negative-emissions technologies (NETs) that remove the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere. While techno-economic feasibility alone has driven the definition of negative-emissions solutions, NETs’ diverse, far-reaching implications demand a more holistic assessment. Here, we present a comprehensive framework, integrating NETs’ critical performance aspects of feasibility, effectiveness, and side impacts, to define the optimal technology mix within realistic outlooks. The resulting technology portfolios provide a useful new benchmark to compare carbon avoidance and removal measures and deliberately choose the best path to solve the climate emergency. Show less
This report is the outcome of a consensus-building project to agree on best practices for environmental and nutritional Life Cycle Assessment (nLCA) methodology, and identify future research needs.... Show moreThis report is the outcome of a consensus-building project to agree on best practices for environmental and nutritional Life Cycle Assessment (nLCA) methodology, and identify future research needs. The project involved 30 nutritional and environmental LCA researchers from 18 countries. It focused on the assessment of food items (as opposed to meals or diets).Best practice recommendations were developed to address the intended purpose of an LCA study and related modeling approach, choice of an appropriate functional unit, assessment of nutritional value, and reporting nLCA results. An nLCA study should report the quantities of as many essential nutrients as possible and aim to provide information on the nutritional quality and/or health impacts in addition to nutrient quantities. Outstanding issues requiring further research attention include: defining a minimum number of nutrients to be considered in an nLCA study; treatment of nutrients to limit; use of nutrient indexes; further development of Impact Assessment methods; representation of nutritional changes that may occur during subsequent distribution and food preparation in cradle-to-gate nLCA studies; and communication of data uncertainty and variability. More data are required for different regions (particularly developing countries); for the processing, distribution, retail, and consumption life cycle stages; and for food loss and waste. Finally, there is a need to extend nLCA methodology for the assessment of meals and diets, to consider further how to account for the multi-functionality of food in a sustainability framework, and to set nLCA studies within the context of environmental limits.These results provide a robust basis for improving nLCA methodology and applying it to identify solutions that minimize the trade-offs between nourishing populations and safeguarding the environment. Show less
