For efficient life cycle assessment calculation, we need a database that provides life cycle inventories for the most important inputs, outputs and processes in agriculture. A life cycle inventory quantifies the extraction of resources and the emissions into the environment of the system under consideration.
The development of the use of energy from biomass is highly dynamic. New commodities, new technologies and the development of the methodology call for an updating of the underlying data. The inventories for plant production and bioenergy in the ecoinvent database have been revised and harmonised with respect to their greenhouse gas emissions.
We support eco-design processes in the food industry with life cycle assessments. Here, we deal with the question of what information is needed for environmental product declarations, and other similar questions.
The food industry uses numerous commodities which originate from different regions and are produced in very different manners. Given that a specific quantification of the environmental impacts associated with commodity production is scarcely feasible, the MEXALCA method was developed to enable estimates for worldwide production in the crop-production sector.
