LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 6, SESSION B: METHODS, TOOLS, DATABASES 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
922
176. Surveying tools and methods for LCA in the agri-food sector
Ricardo Teixeira * , Lori Gustavus, Anne Himeno, Sara Pax
Bluehorse Associates, 12 rue Soyer, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, Corresponding author. E-mail: ricardo.teixeira@bluehorseassociates.com
The objective of the present paper is to understand how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) practitioners make
choices between different tools, depending on their objectives. In order to do so, we divided our work in two
stages:
1. The first state was making a review of how many tools are in the LCA market, and which are their main
characteristics. We reviewed 63 tools out of more than 100 that are available, 11 of which we tested to some
extent.
2. The second part was conducting a survey on LCA practitioners, trying to understand how those tools are
used and to what end. The basis for this work was an adaptation of the questions by Cooper and Fava (2006).
The survey was announced in the PRe Consultants LCA discussion list, and sent by e-mail to the Bluehorse
Associates (BHA) mailing list. A total of 117 LCA practitioners answered at least one question in the survey.
Since BHA is a sustainability metrics company specialised in the food industry, there was a high share of
replies by LCA practitioners in agriculture and food. This inherent bias was intended for this study. Our objective
is to understand, from the standpoint of an informed LCA practitioner, which solutions are available,
what differentiates them, and how they adapt to each specific objective of the studies.
Our first finding was that the frontier between “full LCA” (ISO compliant) tools and simplified, nonstandardised
tools (simplified LCA) is now much fuzzier. Simplified tools are becoming more accurate,
while full LCA tool developers are coming up with their own simplified tool versions. Simplification is today
a synonym with user-friendliness and practicality, not necessarily lack of rigor.
Part of the explanation for this has to do with political context. There is now a need for more practical, business-oriented
tools that respond to the high demand created by the generalisation of product LCA. Other part
of the explanation was found during the survey (Teixeira and Pax, 2011). Even though most respondents
claim to follow some kind of standard, they do not always submit their studies to peer review (Table 1). Research
and development, innovation and eco-design are the most mentioned objectives of LCA studies today,
and all of these are internal to companies. In fact, almost all tool providers organise seminars, webinars or
some other forum to communicate with users. Learning and knowledge transmission from developers to
users is now a key concern, as many companies do not have in-house LCA expertise, but LCA is progressively
done in-house. Since the focus is no longer on communication, simplification has gained in importance
against standardisation.
Still, practitioners quote data availability as their main challenge. Simplified methods, for example those
based on large quantities of secondary data, address this concern. The tool review confirmed that the number
of data providers is still very low, and data availability is a fair concern.
Another interesting finding was that most tools do not easily display trial versions or disclose much information
about the tool and databases included. In many cases pricing models are either very complex or absent
from public display. So, the task of a practitioner selecting the best-suited tool for the project’s objectives is
difficult, due to the disappearing frontier between full LCA and simplified LCA, the many similar options
available, and the lack of transparency in price and use. Unless the practitioner has previous pointers or welldefined
targets to start with, it is very difficult to make an informed choice without spending time and resources
surveying the market for a long period of time. In the future, it is highly recommendable that tools
become transparent about what they can deliver to clients and how they are different from their competitors.
References
Cooper, J.S., Fava, J., 2006. Life-Cycle Assessment Practitioner Survey Summary of Results. Journal of
Industrial Ecology, 10, 12-14.
Teixeira, R., Pax, S., 2011. A Survey of Life Cycle Assessment Practitioners with a Focus on the Agri-Food
Sector. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 15, 817-820.