Stephan Pfister

• Professor
• Professor (Associate) at ETH Zurich

The bioeconomy is key to meeting climate targets. Here, we examine greenhouse gas emissions in the global bioeconomy supply chain (1995–2022) using advanced multi-regional input-output analysis and a global land-use change model. Considering agriculture, forestry, land use, and energy, we assess the carbon footprint of biomass production and examin...

Aim Global biodiversity loss resulting from anthropogenic land‐use activities is a pressing concern, requiring precise assessments of impacts at large spatial extents. Existing models mainly focus on species richness and abundance, lacking insights into ecological mechanisms and species' roles in ecosystem functioning. To bridge this gap, we conduc...

Lithium-ion batteries are pivotal in climate change mitigation. While their own carbon footprint raises concerns, existing studies are scattered, hard to compare and largely overlook the relevance of battery materials. Here, we go beyond traditional carbon footprint analysis and develop a cost-based approach, estimating emission curves for battery...

Lithium (Li) is essential for decarbonization strategies, such as electric vehicles and renewable energy storage, experiencing the largest growth rates among metals required for low-carbon technologies. To meet this demand, the raw materials sector must increase current capacities and develop new ones at untapped deposits. Understanding life cycle...

Purpose The consumption of freshwater can increase local competition among ecosystems needs, agriculture, and domestic users. This competition can lead to reduced domestic water availability and subsequent inadequate hygiene practices leading to water-related diseases. Among the few attempts to develop endpoint-oriented characterization models and...

The rising demand for Li, paramount for energy storage, necessitates expanded supply. As the supply is concentrated in a few countries, this poses supply chain risks for Li-ion battery makers. To diversify suppliers, alternative Li ore deposits such as geothermal brines are being explored. However, Li extraction from geothermal brines is challengin...

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are pivotal in climate change mitigation, enabling the shift towards renewable energy and electric vehicles. Despite their benefits, LIBs’ own carbon footprint (CF) stemming from material sourcing and manufacturing, raises concerns. Yet, data on CFs of LIBs is scattered, hard to compare and largely overlooks the relevan...

Sub-optimal dietary patterns make major contributions to the Global Burden of Disease and are among the most pressing issues affecting human health. Consequently, they are key to consider when assessing the human health and other environmental impacts of foods and diets within life cycle assessments. The UN Environment Life Cycle Initiative convene...

The world is in the midst of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste. The global economy is consuming ever more natural resources, while the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals. The scientific community has never before been more aligned or more resolute on the need for urg...

The global biodiversity loss resulting from anthropogenic land-use activities is a pressing concern, requiring precise assessments of impacts at large spatial extents. Existing models primarily focus on quantifying impacts on species richness and abundance, often overlooking the ecological relevance of species traits and their contributions to ecos...

Land use is a major threat to terrestrial biodiversity. Life cycle assessment is a tool that can assess such threats and thereby support environmental decision-making. Within the Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (GLAM) project, the Life Cycle Initiative hosted by UN Environment aims to create a life cycle impact assessment method ac...

Climate change and particulate matter air pollution present major threats to human well-being by causing impacts on human health. Both are connected to key air pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathr...

High-quality data is a prerequisite for the sustainability assessment of chemicals. However, the most prevalent databases currently contain either intransparent aggregated data (impeding quality checks) or, in absence of measured data, rely on widespread use of proxy data for key inventory flows. This study analyzes the quality and implications of...

Regional carrying capacities Water footprint Responsibility for global and local sustainability Hotspots in global supply chains A B S T R A C T Freshwater, a limited natural resource, is unevenly distributed worldwide; this limited availability necessitates the virtual water trade in global supply chains, which may induce freshwater overconsumptio...

Chemicals is the industrial sector with the highest energy demand, using a substantial share of global fossil energy and emitting increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses following rapid growth over the past 25 years. Emissions associated with energy used have increased with growth in coal dependent regions but are also commonly underestimated in re...

There has been increasing attention recently to reprocessing of mining waste, which aims to recover potentially valuable materials such as metals and other byproducts from untapped resources. Mining waste valorization may offer environmental advantages over traditional make-waste-dispose approaches. However, a quantitative environmental assessment...

Forests are home to many species and provide biomass for material and energy. Here, we modeled the potential global species extinction risk from future scenarios of climate mitigation and EU28 forest management. We considered the continuation of current practices, the adoption of closer-to-nature management (low-intensity practices), and set-asides...

There has been increasing attention recently to reprocessing of mining waste, which aims to recover potentially valuable materials such as metals and other byproducts from untapped resources. Mining waste valorization may offer environmental advantages over traditional make-waste-dispose approaches. However, a quantitative environmental assessment...

Anticipated infrastructure growth and energy transition may exacerbate biodiversity loss through increased demand for mining products. This study uses an enhanced multiregional input-output database (REX, Resolved EXIOBASE) and supply chain impact mapping (SCIM) method to assess global biodiversity loss associated with mining-related land use. We i...

Circularity of raw materials starts with a zero-waste approach to any (potential) resource. The increasing pressure on the primary raw materials sector and external market dependence can ultimately lead to scarcity of natural resources. To minimise this pressure, alternative materials need to be mapped, characterised, and valorised. Construction an...

Climate change and particulate matter air pollution present major threats to human well-being by causing impacts on human health. Both are connected to key air pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), primary fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia (NH 3 ), which are primarily emitted from ener...

Human activities put pressure on the natural environmental and the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (LCA) is becoming a more prevalent tool to assess the relevant environmental impacts from products and processes on terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. The Global Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method (GLAM) project of the Life Cycle Initia...

While many different lithium carbonate production routes have been developed, existing life cycle assessments (LCA) of lithium carbonate production from brines are mainly based on a single brine operation site. Hence, current life cycle inventories do not capture the variability of brine sites and misestimate life cycle impacts. This study presents...

Low-carbon technologies are needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change but require large amounts of metals, whose mining and processing cause a broad range of other environmental impacts. These require sound assessment to prevent burden-shifting. One assessment approach for that is the Planetary Boundary framework which acts as a guidance sys...

Waste from primary mining operations, especially mine tailings, receive much attention as potential secondary resources that can transform liabilities into resources. The primary intention is to minimize mine tailings disposal problems through volume reduction while recovering secondary resources for industrial materials. However, the environmental...

Existing life cycle assessments (LCA) of lithium carbonate production from brines are mainly based on one single brine operation site, while many different lithium carbonate production routes have been developed in the past. Hence, current life cycle inventories do not capture the variability of brine sites and misestimate life cycle impacts. This...

The expected growth in infrastructure and energy transition may exacerbate biodiversity loss by the rising demand for mining products. Many mining products are extracted in the Global South and exported to the global North for further processing and final consumption, where a link to the devastating environmental effects is often missing. Based on...

Research on the environmental impacts from the global value chain of plastics has typically focused on the disposal phase, considered most harmful to the environment and human health. However, the production of plastics is also responsible for substantial environmental, health and socioeconomic impacts. We show that the carbon and particulate-matte...

There is generally a mismatch in the land use classification of life cycle inventory (LCI) databases and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods. This mismatch can hinder the proper assessment of land use impacts on biodiversity. To facilitate such assessments, we matched the land use classes of two global LCIA methods to five widely used LCI d...

To guide us toward a sustainable future, the impacts of human activities on natural resources need to be understood and quantified. In this study on global agriculture, we use a Life Cycle Assessment framework to estimate potential long-term soil productivity losses caused by soil compaction and water erosion due to agricultural crop production. We...

Although it is not yet current practice in life cycle assessment, it is recommended that impact assessment methods be accompanied by their uncertainty data to better guide the decision maker. This work uses the best available information to assess uncertainty of the AWARE model for water scarcity and corresponding sensitivities of input parameters....

Life cycle assessment of three sources of phosphorus (P) to agriculture is presented, comprising a conventional source, namely a chemical fertilizer (DAP, or diammonium phosphate), and two alternative sources, namely P recovered from septic tank liquor (decentralized system) and that recovered from sewage sludge (centralized system). Impacts of eac...

To remain within the limits of the planetary boundaries and address increasing disease rates due to poor eating habits, there needs to be a major shift in dietary patterns. The composition of an optimal diet changes depending on location, season, and personalized dietary needs. We develop a methodology to build a 500+ food item, nutrient, and envir...

The FAO Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership organised a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to develop reference guidelines on water footprinting for livestock production systems and supply chains. The mandate of the TAG was to i) provide recommendations to monitor the environmental performance of feed and livestock sup...

The notion of transforming waste as secondary resources for substituting materials in the current economy is getting more popular1. Besides limiting environmental consequences2, copper mining residues such as waste rock has been viewed as one of the promising materials for valorisation due to its resource availability. A particular product such as...

Although metals and minerals represent a prominent asset for sustainable development, continuous population growth and the current accelerations in energy and mobility transitions are increasing concerns regarding their accessibility for current and future generations. As recent insights have identified access rather than depletion to be the domina...

The Planetary Boundaries framework provides guidance to global sustainability and can be applied to inform the implementation of national environmental policies. Initial results from this analysis show that Switzerland is not living within its "safe operating space". Swiss climate change and biodiversity impacts are higher than the allocated f...

This work provides a globally regionalized approach for quantifying particulate matter (PM2.5) health impacts. Atmospheric transport and pollutant chemistry of primary particulate matter, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and ammonia (NH3) from stack emissions were modeled and used to calculate monthly high-resolution maps of global charac...

Moving towards a greener economy requires detailed information on the environmental impacts of global value chains. Environmentally-extended multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis plays a key role in providing this information, but current databases are limited in their spatial (e.g. EXIOBASE3) or sectoral resolution (e.g. Eora26 and GTAP) as...

Steam-electric power dominates global electricity production. Mitigating its environmental burdens relies on quantifying them globally, on a high resolution. Here, with an unprecedented combination of detail and coverage, the Rankine cycle was individually modelled for > 21,000 geocoded steam-electric generating units globally. Accounting for diffe...

This paper focuses on regional integration through the lenses of the Water-Food-Energy (WEF) nexus, a concept putting strong emphasis on cross-sectoral and multi-level interactions as well as on resource interdependencies. There is an extensive amount of published research focusing on the Aral Sea basin. In this paper, the authors build upon these...

In environmental management and sustainability there is an increasing interest in measurement and accounting of beneficial impact—as an incentive to action, as a communication tool, and to move toward a positive, constructive approach focused on opportunities rather than problems. One approach uses the metaphor of a “handprint,” complementing the n...

Sustainable freshwater management is an essential target for sustainability. The concept of planetary boundaries evaluates whether the environmental loads from humans are within the carrying capacity of the environment at a global level, while the region-specific assessment of carrying capacities of freshwater consumption can complement the global...

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is a lively field of research, and data and models are continuously improved in terms of impact pathways covered, reliability, and spatial detail. However, many of these advancements are scattered throughout the scientific literature, making it difficult for practitioners to apply the new models. Here, we present...

There are currently limited Life Cycle Impact Assessment methods existing for assessing impacts on the natural resource soil. In this paper, we develop methods for the assessment of compaction and water erosion impacts within one framework, which can be expanded with additional degradation processes in the future. Our methods assess potential long-...

There is public support in the United States and Europe for accounting for animal welfare in national policies on food and agriculture. Although an emerging body of research has measured animals’ capacity to suffer, there has been no specific attempt to analyze how this information is interpreted by the public or how exactly it should be reflected...

According to ISO 14046 the quantification of the water scarcity footprint (WSFP) of hydropower reservoirs has to consider (1) the evaporation of water from the surface of the reservoir, (2) the baseline evaporation of water of the same area before the reservoir has been built, and (3) the water scarcity index of the location of the reservoir on a s...

We combine geochemical approach (thermodynamics equilibrium, dissolution/ precipitation,..) and climate condition of specific sites to estimate future heavy metals release in LCA. Future studies will connect this framework with global assessment of mine tailings (copper production) to highlight toxicity hotpots globally.

PREPRINT AVAILABLE AT: https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10501292.1 ABSTRACT: In environmental management and sustainability there is an increasing interest in measurement and accounting of beneficial impact - as an incentive to action, as a communication tool, and to move towards a positive, constructive approach focused on opportunities rather than...

Purpose So far, land occupation impact assessment models in life-cycle assessment have predominantly considered biodiversity, ecosystem quality and ecosystem services. However, in a manner similar to water consumption, land occupation has the potential to impact food production and thereby human health. In this study, the impact pathway linking lan...

[Presentation will be uploaded here soon] Ambient particulate matter (PM) is the main cause for human health impacts from environmental pollution [Global Burden of Disease, 2018]. It is largely associated with fine particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from fossil fuel combustion, and in particular from...

Due to global water scarcity, the use of reclaimed wastewater for crop irrigation is required; however, if the wastewater treatment is inadequate, it can be a source of environmental pollution. In order to improve wastewater reclamation, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) have been tested. At full scale, ozonation is one such process that effectiv...

High spatial resolution becomes increasingly important in life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) where health and environmetnal impacts depend strongly on the location of emissions. The health impact assessment of Particulate Matter (PM) is such a case, as impacts may change by orders of magnitude based on several site-specific key parameters. Current...

Purpose Regionalized life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) has rapidly developed in the past decade, though its widespread application, robustness, and validity still face multiple challenges. Under the umbrella of UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, a dedicated cross-cutting working group on regionalized LCIA aims to provide an overview of the status...

Purpose While many examples have shown unsustainable use of freshwater resources, existing LCIA methods for water use do not comprehensively address impacts to natural resources for future generations. This framework aims to (1) define freshwater resource as an item to protect within the Area of Protection (AoP) natural resources, (2) identify rele...

Fresh water is a renewable yet limited natural resource. While abundant in some areas, fresh water is scarce in others where its consumption in agriculture leads to negative impacts on humanity, ecosystems and biodiversity. International trade in water intensive products can help to reduce water stress or may increase water consumption in water str...

Supply chains become increasingly globalized. Multi-regional input-output databases contain all the information to assess impacts along the value chain, but standard calculation routines to track the impacts of any sector along the global upstream and downstream value chain are missing. Mapping the impacts of materials has been a particular challen...

Biofuels play a critical role in the Paris Agreement to help achieve climate change mitigation targets. However, a significant increase in production of biofuels might potentially be realized at the expense of overusing natural resources, particularly land and water. Understanding the tradeoffs between the impacts on land and water arises as a crit...

The international community has set ambitious goals for global prosperity and protecting the planet, including the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and environmental conventions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Convention t...

Much is at stake as global society approaches the final decade before the Sustainable Development Goals are fixed to be realized in 2030. The international community has set high ambitions for global prosperity, the protection of our biological diversity and land resources, and limiting global warming. Progress towards these ambitions is within our...

FULL ACCESS: https://rdcu.be/bmcVk ABSTRACT: Coal power generation is a primary cause of greenhouse gas (GHG) and toxic airborne emissions globally. We present a uniquely comprehensive inventory of CO2, methane, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury emissions for 7,861 coal-generating units including their supply chains....

Purpose Guidance is needed on best-suited indicators to quantify and monitor the man-made impacts on human health, biodiversity and resources. Therefore, the UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative initiated a global consensus process to agree on an updated overall life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) framework and to recommend a non-comprehensive list of...

Purpose: Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results are used to assess potential environmental impacts of different products and services. As part of the UNEP-SETAC life cycle initiative flagship project that aims to harmonize indicators of potential environmental impacts, we provide a consensus viewpoint and recommendations for future developmen...

Purpose This study seeks to provide a framework for integrating animal welfare as a fourth pillar into a life cycle sustainability assessment and presents three alternative animal welfare indicators. Methods Animal welfare is assessed during farm life and during slaughter. The indicators differ in how they value premature death. All three consider...

Water consumption and scarcity problems are mainly caused by agricultural production. Highly populated and economically developed regions such as the EU27 import a large share of their products from other regions. Thereby they induce environmental impacts in these regions and put the resource availability at risk, affecting their future food securi...

68th LCA forum, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, 16 April, 2018

Fossil fuels are associated with significant impacts on human health from air pollution. Life cycle assessment (LCA) can be used to target measures for improvement but its simplified linear approach of multiplying emissions with fixed characterization factors to quantify impacts yields unsatisfactory results where pollution mechanisms are highly no...

Many new damage oriented methods have recently been developed to address environmental consequences of water consumption in life cycle assessment (LCA). However, such methods can only partially be compared and combined, since their modelling structure and metrics are inconsistent. Moreover, they focus on specific water sources (e.g. river) and miss...

The overuse of human demand for water threatens the capacity of rivers or watersheds to retain their ecosystem services. Environmental water requirement (EWR) needs to be taken explicitly into account when assessing the impact from freshwater use on freshwater resources. Thus, we propose two perspectives for incorporating EWR into the Demand to ava...

Purpose Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to assess freshwater-related impacts according to a new water footprint framework formalized in the ISO 14046 standard. To date, no consensus-based approach exists for applying this standard and results are not always comparable when different scarcity or stress indicators are used for characterizat...

Purpose Measurability becomes a key question in the assessment of the sustainability of products and services. As the LCA has proven its capability of measuring environmental sustainability over the last decades, the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) seems promising as a way to cover the social dimension of sustainability within a similar framew...

The way in which societies use and care for natural resources fundamentally shapes the well-being of humanity, the environment and the economy. Better and more efficient use of natural resources can be one of the most costefficient and effective ways to reduce impacts on the environment, while also achieving the socio-economic objectives of interna...

_____ http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-017-1297-8 _____ View only: http://rdcu.be/qlja _____ Purpose - In this paper, we summarize the discussion and present the findings of an expert group effort under the umbrella of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Life Cycle...

PurposeAgriculture is a major water user worldwide, potentially depriving many ecosystems of water. Comprehensive global impact assessment methodologies are therefore required to assess impacts from water consumption on biodiversity. Since scarcity of water, as well as species richness, varies greatly between different world regions, a spatially di...

Mercury (Hg) and many of its compounds are highly potent neurotoxins, especially to human fetusesand young children. Global anthropogenic mercury emissions exceed natural emissions by far and mostly come from coal-fired power production (38%). Thus, it is imminent to implement regulations for coal power plants in regions where they are insufficient...