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European Commission | ec · Joint Research Centre (JRC)

On the 5th of July 2023, the European Commission adopted a legislative proposal to set legally binding food waste reduction targets to be achieved by Member States (MSs) by 2030. The results of the first EU-wide monitoring of food waste levels carried out in 2020 will serve as a baseline to assess progress towards the targets. The impact assessment...

The aim of this report is twofold. Firstly, it illustrates the latest refinements applied to a food waste model based on material flow analysis, which performs yearly estimations of food waste generated by food category and stage of the food supply chain. Since 2019, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) has developed this harmonized...

The European Union is a major trading partner of bio-based products and commodities worldwide. It is therefore crucial to estimate the consequences of EU consumption in terms of the related land demand both domestically and outside the EU. Land footprinting methods inherently adopt life cycle thinking. They allow estimate land embodied in commoditi...

Purpose Anthropogenic activities are a major driver of soil and land degradation. Due to the spatial heterogeneity of soil properties and the global nature of most value chains, the modelling of the impacts of land use on soil quality for application in life cycle assessment (LCA) requires a regionalised assessment with global coverage. This paper...

The petrochemical industry can reduce its environmental impacts by moving from fossil resources to alternative carbon feedstocks. Biomass and plastic waste-based production pathways have recently been developed for benzene, toluene, and xylene (BTX). This study evaluates the environmental impacts of these novel BTX pathways at a commercial and futu...

The construction sector, due to its significant environmental impacts, is a focus area for the promotion of a shift towards the circular economy within the EU. A spotlight has been cast on the necessity to reduce construction and demolition waste and prioritise reuse and high-quality recycling. This work centers on selective demolition and design f...

Life cycle thinking methods such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and costing (LCC) were originally developed to assess the performance of products and services (business-making decisions). However, they are increasingly deployed to support policy-making along the entire policy cycle, including via impact assessment (IA) of different policy options....

The current debate on the sustainability of bio-based products questions the environmental benefits of replacing fossil- by bio-resources. Here, we analyze the environmental trade-offs of 98 emerging bio-based materials compared to their fossil counterparts, reported in 130 studies. Although greenhouse gas life cycle emissions for emerging bio-base...

The amendment to Directive 2008/98/EC on Waste established an annual reporting obligation for Member States (MSs) on food waste generation, followed by a common methodology defined in Commission Delegated Decision (EU) 2019/1597. MSs were obliged to report data on food waste quantification for the reference year 2020 by June 2022. As MSs are at dif...

The European Green Deal and the German Resource Efficiency Programme both aim at decoupling resource consumption and associated environmental burdens from economic growth. Monitoring the progress of such policies requires robust estimates of environmental pressures and impacts, both from a domestic and a footprint perspective. Building on the life...

Purpose This work investigates the use of alternative approaches to normalization in life cycle assessment (LCA) and shows the relevance of the normalization step in the interpretation of the results of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) by testing the use of five alternative normalization sets. Methods Five normalization sets are applied and com...

→ The environmental impacts of EU food production and consumption have risen along time, transgressing some planetary boundaries. → Biodiversity footprint is driven by land use and climate change-related impacts, which are associated mainly with animal-based products. → More balanced diets, where animal-based food consumption is reduced and vegetab...

This report describes part of the research carried out to support the Impact Assessment of the legislative proposal amending Directive 2008/98/EC, in relation to the part focusing on setting legally binding food waste reduction targets. It illustrates: — the outcome of the public consultation on the revision of the Waste Framework Directive, for th...

Current agricultural practices are increasingly considered to be unsustainable, causing serious threats to the environment. To meet international and European sustainability goals, the transition to sustainable agriculture is pivotal and ways to achieve it are currently under discussion. Conventional agricultural systems are typically highly produc...

The building sector accounts for 40% of the EU’s energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions, and is therefore a hotspot for mitigation efforts. Stock modelling is a powerful tool to support the assessment of the impact of the building sector and to test policy interventions to reduce it. A common approach to developing a stock model is...

From 15 to 17 May 2023 the European Parliament is hosting a conference on the topic 'Beyond Growth'. This study introduces participants and other stakeholders and interested parties to the debate on going beyond growth. Organised in two parts, the study first presents the status quo, with our reliance on economic growth as the main policy driver an...

Purpose Recent developments in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) target at better addressing biodiversity impacts, including the extended modeling of drivers of biodiversity loss. This led to the development of multiple LCIA methods addressing the area of protection of ecosystem quality (i.e, biodiversity loss) over time. This paper aims at syste...

The European Union (EU) uses biodmass to meet its needs for food and feed, energy, and materials. The demand and supply of biomass have environmental, social, and economic impacts. Understanding biomass supply, demand, costs, and their associated impacts is particularly important for relevant EU policy areas, to facilitate solid and evidence-based...

To make the transition to a more sustainable bio-based economy, new technologies and products will have to be developed. Nevertheless, it is essential to ensure- at an early stage of development- that emerging technologies and products present a genuine decrease of environmental burdens to guide investment and technology deployment towards a sustai...

The transition towards more sustainable food systems is one of the great challenges at global level. While environmental considerations have been widely explored, the social sustainability of agri-food systems have been scarcely addressed in literature, especially regarding the externalization of impacts due to international trade. In this study, w...

Rebound effects have been historically studied through narrow framings which may overlook the complexity of sustainability challenges, sometimes leading to badly informed conclusions and policy recommendations. Here we present a critical literature review of rebound effects in the context of sustainability science in order to (1) map existing rebou...

Within the European Green Deal, the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) (EC, 2020a) identified a number of actions to reduce negative impacts on human health and the environment associated with chemicals, materials, products and services commercialised or introduced onto the EU market. In particular, the ambition of the CSS is to phase out...

The current debate on the sustainability of bio-based products questions the environmental benefits of replacing fossil- by bio-resources. Here, we systematically analyzed the environmental trade-offs of 86 emerging bio-based materials compared to their fossil counterparts. Although greenhouse gas (GHG) life cycle emissions for emerging bio-based p...

Purpose An adequate matching between the nomenclature of elementary flows in life cycle inventory (LCI) databases and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods is key for ensuring the proper application of life cycle assessment (LCA). However, the nomenclature of elementary flows lacks harmonization among the LCA community. This paper aims at def...

Purpose The EU environmental footprint (EF) is a life cycle assessment (LCA)-based method which aims at assessing the environmental impacts of products and organisations through 16 midpoint impact categories, among which three address toxicity-related impacts. This paper presents the principles underpinning the calculation of the set of characteris...

The EU Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) aims at fostering a transition towards safer and more sustainable chemicals. To ensure this transition, safety and sustainability considerations should be integrated when assessing existing chemicals as well as alternative chemicals that might substitute them. The operationalisation of the Safe and...

In the context of the EU Green Deal, the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) aims at improving the safeguard of human health and the environment as part of an ambitious approach to tackle pollution from all sources and move towards zero-pollution for air, water and soil. A key action defined in the CSS is the development of safe and sustain...

The EU Biomass Flows tool is a visualisation, in the form of Sankey diagrams, of the flows of biomass for each sector of the bioeconomy, from supply to uses including trade. It displays the harmonised data from the various Joint Research Centre (JRC) units contributing to the BIOMASS Assessment study of the JRC3. The diagrams enable deeper analysis...

Despite plastic being one of the most used materials globally, information about plastic flows in value chains is generally lacking. The present study aims at estimating the European Union (EU) plastic footprint (including production and consumption flows) by combining different approaches, as well as at estimating marine littering potentials. Plas...

The circular economy aims to decouple growth from environmental impacts by optimizing resource use, minimizing waste and pollution. The European Union (EU) has the ambition to lead a circular economy transition on a global level. Realizing the transition is complex, because it requires substantial and interconnected changes in the current system. P...

The European Union is a major trading partner of bio-based products and commodities worldwide. It is therefore crucial to estimate the consequences of EU consumption in terms of the related land demand both domestically and outside the EU. Land footprinting methods, inherently adopt life cycle thinking. They allow estimate land embedded in commodit...

The European Green Deal and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ask for a more holistic approach to production and consumption along value chains. The role of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in supporting policy design and monitoring is then pivotal to achieve policy ambitions. This paper explores the potential support of LCA to EU policies and th...

As part of its commitment towards more sustainable production and consumption, the European Commission developed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)-based framework, which allows assessing the environmental impacts related to EU consumption of goods and services. Two indicators have been developed: the Consumption Footprint and the Domestic Footprint. Th...

Assessing the Domestic Footprint of individual Member States and the EU allows for identification of environmental hotspots, setting baseline for monitoring of environmental performance progresses and against which testing policy options and scenarios. Domestic footprint focuses exclusively to what is happening within MS boundaries. The Domestic Fo...

Environmental assessment methods have increasingly been adopted to support local transitions toward sustainable urban development and Agenda 2030 implementation at the city level. However, available methods evaluating both direct and indirect (embodied) environmental impacts due to local consumption are still limited and lack a broad coverage of en...

The world is lagging behind in the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and facing global challenges such as climate change and environmental degradation. Initiatives such as the European Green Deal (EGD) are examples of how science-based policies can promote sustainability at global level. The EGD builds on the sustainability...

Purpose Life cycle thinking (LCT) and life cycle assessment (LCA) are increasingly considered pivotal concept and method for supporting sustainable transitions. LCA plays a relevant role in decision support, for the ambition of a holistic coverage of environmental dimensions and for the identification of hotspots, possible trade-offs, and burden sh...

Various environmental challenges, particularly the rising severity of the impacts of climate change, require a systematic shift in and decarbonization of the global economy. Due to their high environmental impacts, buildings and construction have a special role in decarbonization. Environmental modelling of building stock dynamics can help policy m...

Monetary valuation is used in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to aggregate environmental impacts expressed with different units of measure and therefore not directly comparable, in order to facilitate the communication and the use of LCA results in decision-making processes. Although several authors have discussed the advantages of using monetary valua...

Purpose Current patterns of household goods consumption generate relevant environmental pressures and impacts. Environmental impacts are not only limited to the European territory but also to third countries from where products are imported. Assessing the entire life cycle of products enables considering trade-related transboundary effects along su...

Meat production and consumption is associated with the generation of significant environmental pressure and impacts, and resource inefficiencies. This study combines Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and Life cycle Assessment (LCA) to analyse the meat supply chain in order to better comprehend the circularity of the system, considering the Italian meat...

The Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) establishes an annual reporting obligation for MS on food waste generation as of reference year 2020. The common methodology is defined in the Commission delegated decision (EU) 2019/1597 and the reporting format in the Commission implementing decision (EU) 2019/2000. Member States (MS) will be obliged to...

This paper summarizes the 76th LCA Discussion Forum end its main findings. Main issues when addressing emerging technologies identified were: the lack of primary data, the need for (shared) future background scenarios and (guidlines for) a common methodology. The following recommendations have been derived by the organizers: 1) Specific foreground...

Various environmental challenges, particularly the rising severity of the impacts of climate change, require a systematic shift in and decarbonization of the global economy. Due to their high environmental impacts, buildings and construction have a special role in decarbonization. Environmental modelling of building stock dynamics can help policy m...

With the European Green Deal, the European Commission aims to transform the EU’s economy for a more sustainable future. To this end, the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy and the European Industrial Strategy proposed a number of industrial, environmental, climate and energy priorities. In addition, the EC has also set a goal to better protect...

National studies on food waste quantification in EU countries present highly discrepant results due to the different quantification approaches adopted. The European Commission has published a delegated act establishing a common methodology and minimum quality requirements for the uniform measurement of food waste generated in Member States. Neverth...

This chapter discusses the relevance of life cycle assessment within the context of the SDGs and the European Green Deal as a method to assess transboundary effects within the environmental assessment of consumption. The consumption footprint indicator, developed for assessing the environmental impacts of EU consumption, is employed to illustrate h...

• Planetary Boundaries help quantify the environmental sustainability of consumption. • We developed LCIA-based planetary boundaries for evaluating the EU consumption. • EU consumption occupies a high share of the safe operating space globally available. • Planetary boundaries are fundamental to support policy making towards sustainability. • LCA-b...

Purpose The assessment of potential environmental impacts associated to mineral resource use in LCA is a highly debated topic. Most current impact assessment methods consider the extraction of resources as the issue of concern, while their dissipation is an emerging concept. This article proposes an approach to account for mineral resource dissipat...

The online version of the original article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-020-01790-0

Science for Policy report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's science and knowledge service. Modelling is an essential tool to increase the understanding of qualitative and quantitative drivers of sustainability, contributing to the implementation of specific SDGs. The report presents the mapping of JRC models against SDG...

Purpose Trade is increasingly considered a significant contributor to environmental impacts. The assessment of the impacts of trade is usually performed via environmentally extended input–output analysis (EEIOA). However, process-based life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to traded goods allows increasing the granularity of the analysis and may be e...