The climatic challenge of food products in a holistic environmental and life cycle perspective (194871)

The main research questions to be focused in the project are: - How robust and reliable are existing methods and methods under development for calculating environmental profiles of food products in a holistic life cycle perspective, and is it possible to develop a methodological framework that are accepted nationally and internationally as a basis for environmental product declarations? - How can the ongoing development of new knowledge and data about environmental and especially climate gas emissions f rom agricultural processes be implemented in the LCA methodology? - How can other important environmental and resource aspects than those which traditionally are covered by LCA methodology be integrated in the LCA and EPD systems? - How can LCA and EPD results be communicated to the decision makers in a format that are user-friendly and effective in decision making processes in the food chain. It is planned to carry out the following research tasks in the project I. Develop a "Best practise" methodolo gy for environmental and climate gas accounting of food products based in a survey of relevant LCA studies. II. Carry out case studies with products from participating companies in two stages; an early phase focus on Life Cycle Inventory and a later phase based on testing "best practise" methodology. III. Integrating R&D activities between KLIMAT and other ongoing and upcoming R&D projects nationally and internationally. IV. Dissemination and scientific publication. The R&D work will be based in Life C ycle Assessment methodology, which is a well documented method for analyses and documentation of environmental and resource profiles of products in a value chain approach.