“Businesses and other organisations are using of life cycle assessment (LCA) methods to help to estimate their biodiversity impacts across complex value chains. LCA offers a powerful tool to understand the impacts for nature of business operations, yet LCA methods have limitations and substantial uncertainties which are rarely communicated.
This business briefing note uses academic research to understand the different types of uncertainty that occur across multiple stages in LCA, and it uses the example of a chocolate cake to explore what this means for developing robust organisational biodiversity strategies.
The authors propose that used appropriately, LCA-based approaches can: help track and disclose impacts on nature, prioritise areas and impact pathways for further investigation; and be used as one part of a ‘basket of metrics’ approach for developing biodiversity-relevant targets and guiding action aligned with nature-positive goals. “
Related Research Themes
Ecology
Testing the effectiveness of different ecological approaches for nature recovery to support biodiversity and the delivery of ecosystem services such as climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Systems
Developing a novel Analysis and Decision Platform to integrate nature recovery into land-use and infrastructure planning, and exploring scenarios that can deliver local, national and international commitments to nature, climate change and sustainable development.
Related Outputs
Navigating uncertainty in LCA-based approaches to biodiversity footprinting
The use of Life cycle assessment (LCA) methods is rapidly expanding as a means of estimating the biodiversity impacts of organisations across complex value chains. However, these methods have limitations and substantial uncertainties, which are rarely communicated in the results of LCAs. Drawing upon the ecological and LCA literature on uncertainty and two worked examples […]
