Life Cycle Talks: Can we quantify the impact on biodiversity in LCA from food products?

Welcome to Life Cycle Talks! A series of talks presenting the research front to keep you up to date with the science and application of the life cycle perspective. Our next guest is Serina Ahlgren, researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. She will talk about a research project where the biodiversity impact of a large number of food items has been calculated. She will present findings and methodological challenges encountered in the project. The results will be published in an online biodiversity database. Areas of application for the biodiversity database include: choosing foods and ingredients with a positive or low negative impact on biodiversity, finding biodiversity hotspots in the production chain, consumer information, etc.

“For the first time, there is now a way for everyone to calculate the impact on biodiversity of the food we produce and eat.” Says Serina Ahlgren

Presenter

Serina Ahlgren is a senior researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. Her work centers around quantification of different sustainability aspects in agriculture and the food supply chain. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool she often uses in her research, and integrating biodiversity in LCA has been the focus of her work during the recent years.