UNEP-SETAC guideline on global land use impact assessment on biodiversity and ecosystem services in LCA
Thomas Koellner,Laura de Baan,Tabea Beck,Miguel Brandão,Bárbara María Civit,Manuele Margni,Llorenç Milà i Canals,Rosie Saad,Danielle Maia de Souza,Ruedi Müller-Wenk +9 more
TLDR
In this paper, the authors propose a guideline to build methods for land use impact assessment in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is based on a number of assumptions: Discrete land use types are sufficient for an assessment of land use impacts; ecosystem quality remains constant over time of occupation; time and area of occupation are substitutable; transformation time is negligible; regeneration is linear and independent from land use history and landscape configuration; biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services are independent; the ecological impact is linearly increasing with the intervention; and there is no interaction between land use and other driversAbstract:
As a consequence of the multi-functionality of land, the impact assessment of land use in Life Cycle Impact Assessment requires the modelling of several impact pathways covering biodiversity and ecosystem services. To provide consistency amongst these separate impact pathways, general principles for their modelling are provided in this paper. These are refinements to the principles that have already been proposed in publications by the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. In particular, this paper addresses the calculation of land use interventions and land use impacts, the issue of impact reversibility, the spatial and temporal distribution of such impacts and the assessment of absolute or relative ecosystem quality changes. Based on this, we propose a guideline to build methods for land use impact assessment in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Recommendations are given for the development of new characterization models and for which a series of key elements should explicitly be stated, such as the modelled land use impact pathways, the land use/cover typology covered, the level of biogeographical differentiation used for the characterization factors, the reference land use situation used and if relative or absolute quality changes are used to calculate land use impacts. Moreover, for an application of the characterisation factors (CFs) in an LCA study, data collection should be transparent with respect to the data input required from the land use inventory and the regeneration times. Indications on how generic CFs can be used for the background system as well as how spatial-based CFs can be calculated for the foreground system in a specific LCA study and how land use change is to be allocated should be detailed. Finally, it becomes necessary to justify the modelling period for which land use impacts of land transformation and occupation are calculated and how uncertainty is accounted for. The presented guideline is based on a number of assumptions: Discrete land use types are sufficient for an assessment of land use impacts; ecosystem quality remains constant over time of occupation; time and area of occupation are substitutable; transformation time is negligible; regeneration is linear and independent from land use history and landscape configuration; biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services are independent; the ecological impact is linearly increasing with the intervention; and there is no interaction between land use and other drivers such as climate change. These assumptions might influence the results of land use Life Cycle Impact Assessment and need to be critically reflected. In this and the other papers of the special issue, we presented the principles and recommendations for the calculation of land use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services on a global scale. In the framework of LCA, they are mainly used for the assessment of land use impacts in the background system. The main areas for further development are the link to regional ecological models running in the foreground system, relative weighting of the ecosystem services midpoints and indirect land use.read more
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Land use impacts on biodiversity in LCA: a global approach
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an approach to quantify land use impacts on biodiversity across different world regions and highlight uncertainties and research needs, based on the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) land use assessment framework.
ReCiPe 2016 : A harmonized life cycle impact assessment method at midpoint and endpoint level Report I: Characterization
M.A.J. Huijbregts,Zoran J. N. Steinmann,Pieter M. F. Elshout,Gea Stam,Francesca Verones,Marisa Vieira,Anne Hollander,Michiel C. Zijp,R. van Zelm +8 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Bio-based plastics - A review of environmental, social and economic impact assessments
Sebastian Spierling,Eva Knüpffer,Hannah Behnsen,Marina Mudersbach,Hannes Krieg,Sally Springer,Stefan Albrecht,Christoph Herrmann,Hans-Josef Endres +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, a comprehensive approach to calculate the sustainability performance of bio-based plastics on a global scale was proposed, based on available data from LCA, social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), and life cycle costing (LCC) studies on Bio-Based Plastics.
Journal ArticleDOI
Environmental assessment of marine fuels: liquefied natural gas, liquefied biogas, methanol and bio-methanol
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the life cycle environmental performance of liquefied natural gas (LNG), LNG, biogas (LBG), methanol and bio-methanol.
Journal ArticleDOI
IMPACT World+: a globally regionalized life cycle impact assessment method
Cécile Bulle,Cécile Bulle,Manuele Margni,Laure Patouillard,Laure Patouillard,Anne-Marie Boulay,Guillaume Bourgault,Vincent De Bruille,Viêt Cao,Michael Zwicky Hauschild,Andrew D. Henderson,Andrew D. Henderson,Sebastien Humbert,Sormeh Kashef-Haghighi,Anna Kounina,Alexis Laurent,Annie Levasseur,Annie Levasseur,Gladys Liard,Ralph K. Rosenbaum,Pierre-Olivier Roy,Shanna Shaked,Peter Fantke,Olivier Jolliet +23 more
TL;DR: Sala et al. as discussed by the authors proposed a midpoint-damage framework with four distinct complementary viewpoints to present an LCIA profile: (1) midpoint impacts, (2) damage impacts,(3) damages on human health, ecosystem quality, and resources & ecosystem service areas of protection, and (4) damaging on water and carbon areas of concerns.
References
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The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital
Robert Costanza,Rudolf de Groot,Stephen Farberk,Monica Grasso,Bruce Hannon,Karin E. Limburg,Shahid Naeem,José M. Paruelo,Robert Raskin,Paul Suttonkk,Marjan van den Belt +10 more
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