The Swiss Federal Research Station Agroscope and the consulting firm Quantis, have launched the World Food LCA Database (WFLDB). Launched in 2012, it aims to provide reliable and up-to-date data for more accurate food and beverage life cycle assessments (LCA), decisions and communication. The overarching goal is to bring together experts from all stages in the food chain to develop a comprehensive and up-to-date inventory database for accurate life cycle assessments (LCA).
Two governmental institutions and nine food companies are involved and more will be recruited. The funding partners today are: the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), Bayer, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), General Mills, Kraft Foods, Mars, Mondelēz International, Monsanto, Nestlé, Syngenta and Yara.
The background to this initiatives is the increasing demand in the food and beverage sector for LCAs that quantify environmental impacts and that can be used as a basis for achieving environmental improvements. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a scientific method used to quantify impacts throughout all activities occurring over the life cycle of a product or service, from extracting natural resources to managing generated waste.
Currently, one of the major limitations of LCAs in this sector is the lack of consistent, up-to-date, comprehensive and transparent inventory data for food products and processes. Therefore, LCA-based communication is too often driven by results that are not comparable and sufficiently reliable.
A free webinar will be organized about the project on November 18 at 4 GMT+1. The webinar will provide information about:
- The structure of the database
- The project organization
- The partners today and the time schedule of the project
- Information on how to get involved
- Potential link between database and Single Market for Green Products initiative
You can read more and register for the event here. For more general information about the new World Food LCA Database, see here.
If you want more information about LCA of food products you will find plenty of information on our website here.
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