Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate environmental impacts of Bioeconomy (2021).
Brief me
- Life-cycle-based approaches provide comprehensive, structured and consistent means of assessing the environmental performance of bio-based products and systems within safe ecological limits.
- An LCA-based analysis allowed to assess that the overall EU Bioeconomy Footprint increased by 23% between 2010 and 2020, mainly due to increased consumption of bio-based products.
- Food consumption has the highest share of the total impacts, with 83–85 % across the years, followed by bioenergy (9–10 % of total impacts), while other sectors show a limited contribution.
- Compared with their conventional counterparts, bioeconomy innovations perform better in climate change and fossil resource use, while some other impacts, such as land use and eutrophication, might be higher.
Find out more in the brief and explore further other resources!
- Substituting conventional products with bioeconomy innovations: analysis of potential environmental impacts using a Life Cycle Assessment perspective (2025)
- The EU Bioeconomy Footprint: Using life cycle assessment to monitor environmental impacts of the EU Bioeconomy (2023)
- Life Cycle Assessment support to environmental ambitions of EU policies and the Sustainable Development Goals (2022)
- Brief on the use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate environmental impacts of the bioeconomy (2019)
Explore further
European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment
Access a whole set of resources related to LCA: guidance, network, projects, tools and data.
Environmental Footprint Methods
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Consumer Footprint Model
Explore the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-based framework to monitor the evolution of the overall environmental footprint of EU production and consumption and compare the footprint against planetary boundaries.
Consumer Footprint Calculator
Calculate the environmental impacts of your consumption pattern and evaluate how changes in your lifestyle may affect your personal footprint.
Safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials
Discover what the framework is, underlying scientific basis, and how to put it into practice.
JRC research on Life cycle assessment (LCA)
Access JRC publications on the measurement of the environmental impact of the bioeconomy.
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