Ecosystem quality in LCIA: status quo, harmonization, and suggestions for the way forward

Woods, John S.; Damiani, Mattia; Fantke, Peter; Henderson, Andrew; Johnston, John M.; Bare, Jane; Sala, Serenella; Souza, Danielle Maia de; Pfister, Stephan; Posthuma, Leo; Rosenbaum, Ralph K.; Verones, Francesca

doi:10.1007/s11367-017-1422-8

Cited by 39 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Generally, the taxonomic coverage of the existing LCIA models is limited and the choice of representative species is different for each stressor, namely only a small number of specific taxa for individual impact pathways are used to develop impact factors (Woods et al., 2017). A few vertebrates and invertebrate taxa are addressed for land use related impacts on biodiversity (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…vascular plants for acidification; vascular plants, algae, freshwater fish species and invertebrates for eutrophication; vascular plants, mammals, birds and some arthropods such as butterflies for land use; freshwater fish species for water use, etc.) (Goedkoop et al., 2009; Huijbregts et al., 2016; Woods et al., 2017). Therefore, the figure for biodiversity loss derives from the sum of the results of the endpoint categories converging in the AoP “ecosystem quality”.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biodiversity impacts due to food consumption in Europe

Crenna

Sinkko

Sala

2019

Journal of Cleaner Production

116

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Food security and biodiversity conservation are closely interconnected challenges to be addressed to achieve a sustainable food system on a global scale. Due to the complex nature of food production and consumption system, quantifying the impacts of food supply chains on biodiversity is challenging. Life cycle assessment (LCA) allows for systematically addressing environmental impacts along supply chains, representing a reference methodology that can be applied for assessing food systems. In the present study, 32 representative food products of consumption in the European Union (EU) were selected and their environmental impacts calculated through a process-based LCA. The potential contribution of EU food consumption to the current biodiversity decline has been evaluated adopting both midpoint and endpoint indicators. A comparison of the impact drivers was performed. Meat products, the underpinning land use for agricultural purposes, and climate change represent the main hotspots of impacts on biodiversity. Notwithstanding several drivers of biodiversity loss can be accounted for with LCA, the evidence of the increasing biodiversity decline on both a European and a global scale indicates that the assessment system should be further expanded, especially for what concerns refining impact categories such as ecotoxicity, and including resource overexploitation, and impact due to invasive species. This study illustrates: how far the current LCA based impact assessment framework may help to address the drivers of biodiversity loss; which are the main uncertainties associated to results stemming from the application of different endpoint methods; which aspects need to be elaborated further to ensure a comprehensive assessment of biodiversity impacts due to food production and consumption.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity impacts due to food consumption in Europe

Crenna

Sinkko

Sala

2019

Journal of Cleaner Production

116

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“…For ecosystem quality, LC‐IMPACT can be used to quantify the “potentially disappeared fraction of species over time” (PDF∙yr) per functional unit (Verones, Moran, Stadler, Kanemoto, & Wood, 2017b; Woods et al., 2017). CFs may or may not already contain the time dimension (e.g., PDF⋅yr/m 3 for water stress or PDF/m 2 for land occupation).…”

Section: Lc‐impact Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

LC‐IMPACT: A regionalized life cycle damage assessment method

Verones¹,

Hellweg

Antón

et al. 2020

J of Industrial Ecology

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119

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Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is a lively field of research, and data and models are continuously improved in terms of impact pathways covered, reliability, and spatial detail. However, many of these advancements are scattered throughout the scientific literature, making it difficult for practitioners to apply the new models. Here, we present the LC‐IMPACT method that provides characterization factors at the damage level for 11 impact categories related to three areas of protection (human health, ecosystem quality, natural resources). Human health damage is quantified as disability adjusted life years, damage to ecosystem quality as global species extinction equivalents (based on potentially disappeared fraction of species), and damage to mineral resources as kilogram of extra ore extracted. Seven of the impact categories include spatial differentiation at various levels of spatial scale. The influence of value choices related to the time horizon and the level of scientific evidence of the impacts considered is quantified with four distinct sets of characterization factors. We demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method with an illustrative life cycle assessment example of different fuel options in Europe (petrol or biofuel). Differences between generic and regionalized impacts vary up to two orders of magnitude for some of the selected impact categories, highlighting the importance of spatial detail in LCIA. This article met the requirements for a gold – gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

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“…Note that there is, from a conceptual point of view, an analogy with the potential affected fraction of species (PAF) and indirectly with the potential disappeared fraction of species (PDF) used for the ecosystem quality area of concern. They represent the fraction of individuals of species (PAF) or the fraction of species in the ecosystem (PDF) missing in the nature (see Woods et al (2018) for details about correspondences between PAF and PDF).…”

Section: Hubbert Peak (This Paper)mentioning

confidence: 99%