Eco-efficiency and Ecosystem Services of Farms
Low environmental impacts while guaranteeing ecosystem services as well as good economic results are crucial for long-term sustainability. We develop methods for evaluating ecological and economic services and apply these to the analysis of farms.
In the project ‘Interaction of Economy and Ecology in Swiss Farms’ (part of the National Research Programme 73), we examined the environmental efficiency and economic performance of various product groups using a detailed life cycle assessment of a sample of farms. It was found that whereas synergies exist between good environmental efficiency and economic performance, no significant trade-offs arise.
With the project 360i – part of the Agroscope Research Programme ‘Indicate’ – we are engaged in developing an evaluation system for agricultural systems encompassing the environmental impacts estimated from both the life cycle assessment and the ecosystem services.