Join us at the next Network Conference!

Welcome to register for the next network conference on November 23, 2023, from 12.00 to 16.30 at Chalmers in Gothenburg. All partners, government agencies and SMEs collaborating with the Center are welcome to join. The theme for the network conference is “LCA Data & Methodology”. The conference will provide room for world café discussions on various topics, a “recycle your poster” session and the opportunity to network with other life cycle researchers and professionals. We have also invited Archana Datta from the Life Cycle Initiative, United Nations Environment Programme to deliver the conference keynote speech.

The day will start with a vegan lunch at 12.00 and end with an after work/mingle at 16.30. More information about the day and a full program can be found below!

Sign up today and secure your spot! We look forward to seeing you at the network conference!

SPEAKERS AND DISCUSSION LEADERS

Keynote Speaker: Archana Datta, Associate Programme Management Officer at Life Cycle Initiative, Industry and Economy Division, UNEP	Thomas Zobel, Professor at Luleå University of Technology	Babak Kianian, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Specialist, Group Sustainability at Höganäs AB
Valentina Ivanova, Researcher at RISE	Raphael Gazzotti, Researcher at RISE	Cecilia Sundberg, Associate Professor at SLU
Matty Janssen, Senior Researcher at Chalmers	Henrikke Baumann, Professor at Chalmers	Tomas Ekvall, Adjunct professor at Chalmers
Carl Vadenbo, Project Manager at Ecoinvent	Bengt Steen, Professor Emeritus at Chalmers	Tomas Rydberg, Senior Expert LCM
Léa Braud, Postdoctoral Researcher at KTH	Ellen Riise, Senior Sustainability Specialist at Essity

PROGRAM

12:00 LUNCH
Vegetarian lunch with “recycle your poster” session.

13:00 WELCOME & INTRODUCTION
During the first part of the day we will provide insights into the ongoing activities within the Swedish Life Cycle Center and the project Innovation Cluster for the Life Cycle Perspective. The introduction session will be led by Maria Rydberg, Director, and Anna Wikström, Project Manager at the Swedish Life Cycle Center.

PRESENTATIONS
New partner: Luleå University of Technology
Thomas Zobel, Professor at Luleå University of Technology

Keynote speech: Global Perspective: Advancing Life Cycle Approaches via Science, Method Development, Capacity Building, and Networks
Archana Datta, Associate Programme Management Officer at Life Cycle Initiative, Industry and Economy Division, UNEP

Working with life cycle thinking and LCA at Höganäs AB
Babak Kianian, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Specialist, Group Sustainability at Höganäs AB

LCA Data, AI and Scemantic web
Raphael Gazzotti & Valentina Ivanova, Researchers at RISE

14:00 WORLD CAFÉ DISCUSSIONS
During this session, you will have the opportunity to engage in discussions on various topics related to the conference theme, “LCA Data & Methodology.” Descriptions of all the discussion themes are provided below in the program. You will be able to participate in two of the following sessions, one before and one after the coffee break.

Modelling biogenic carbon in LCA
Discussion led by Cecilia Sundberg, Associate Professor at SLU

The prospects for prospective LCA
Discussion led by Matty Janssen, Senior Researcher at Chalmers

What data, what purposes?
Discussion led by Henrikke Baumann, Professor at Chalmers

Unlocking Sustainability Insights with Semantic Web and AI
Discussion led by Valentina Ivanova and Raphaël Gazzotti, Researchers at RISE

Modelling of waste management: recycling and energy recovery
Discussion led by Tomas Ekvall, Adjunct professor at Chalmers

Envisioning the Future of LCA – Data Sourcing and Consumption
Discussion led by Carl Vadenbo, Project Manager at Ecoinvent

Monetary valuation of environmental impacts: access to data
Discussion led by Bengt Steen, Professor Emeritus at Chalmers and Tomas Rydberg Senior Expert LCM

Social LCA & data: What does the future hold?
Discussion led by Léa Braud, Postdoctoral Researcher at KTH

LCA data – sufficient data quality for credible and trustworthy communication along the value chain
Discussion led by Ellen Riise, Senior Sustainability Specialist at Essity

16:15 WRAP UP AND GREETINGS FROM THE CHAIRS OF THE WORKING GROUP LCA DATA & METHODOLOGY

16:30 AFTER WORK
Mingle and continue the discussions at the event area Veras Gräsmatta

ABOUT THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Archana Datta, Associate Programme Management Officer at Life Cycle Initiative, Industry and Economy Division, UNEP

Archana brings over 13 years of diversified experience on capacity building and advocacy in mainstreaming Circular Economy, SCP, Life Cycle Thinking in the Asian region. She has previously worked with UNEP India Country Office, Asian Institute of Technology and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

She holds Masters in Environment Management and has undergone the executive education course in Climate Change Economics and Governance at London School of Economics. She is also a certified trainer on GHG Protocol Product standard on Life Cycle Assessment and certified lead auditor on ISO 14001, Environment Management System standard.

THEMES AND DISCUSSION LEADERS AT THE WORLD CAFÉ DISCUSSIONS

Modelling biogenic carbon in LCA
Discussion led by Cecilia Sundberg, Associate Professor at SLU

Biogenic carbon is rising on the agenda in various aspects of LCA in research, practice and policy. There is rising attention on bioresources to replace fossil fuels and materials, and on biogenic carbon stocks in products, soils and vegetation. Originally, many biogenic carbon flows have been ignored in LCA, but that is no longer the state of the art. How should LCAs address biogenic carbon in order to properly support climate change mitigation? What is being done? What is needed? How can Swedish LCA expertise contribute to the Biogenic Carbon Project of the UN Life Cycle Initiative?

The prospects for prospective LCA
Discussion led by Matty Janssen, Senior Researcher at Chalmers

Prospective LCA has been defined as “studies of emerging technologies in early development stages, when there are still opportunities to use environmental guidance for major alterations” (Arvidsson et al., 2018) and it is this type of LCA that has gained prominence in the scientific literature recently.

What are the advantages of taking a future-oriented approach to LCA, and what are its methodological challenges? How can we best develop future scenarios? How can we best communicate the results of such studies to increase their relevance? Is this type of LCA being picked up by industry? These and other questions will be address in this discussion forum in order to pave the way for prospective LCA.

What data, what purposes?
Discussion led by Henrikke Baumann, Professor at Chalmers

It is an old truth that methodological choices depend on the goal and scope for an LCA. With uses of LCA ranging from EPDs to future-oriented strategic choices, it becomes necessary to ask how these are considered in the building of data infrastructures and data channels for LCA work.

Developing life cycle data infrastructures and channels is a big effort and investment. To what extent does this effort support life cycle work that really delivers environmental impact reductions? Who/what determines the goals of life cycle work?

Unlocking Sustainability Insights with Semantic Web and AI
Discussion led by Valentina Ivanova and Raphaël Gazzotti, Researchers at RISE

AI is the game-changer across industries, and LCA makes no exception. Semantic Web technologies, a key component of AI, facilitates the seamless integration and bridging of disparate data sources, providing a shared common world view. Automating data collection, enabling precise information extraction and forecasting, and streamlining decision-making processes, AI paves the way for digitization and automation of LCA. We will be looking at these future prospects, examining the potential for improved processing and reasoning with LCA studies.

Modelling of waste management: recycling and energy recovery
Discussion led by Tomas Ekvall, Adjunct Professor at Chalmers

Many methods have been proposed for modelling recycling of consumption waste, as discussed in a previous Center project. It is not fully clear, though, if and how these methods should be applied to recycling of production waste.

Energy recovery is often modelled through system expansion with substitution. This approach does not reflect the foreseeable consequences of sending waste to an incinerator. It can also produce LCA results that indicate that incineration is a better option than recycling, even when this is not the case. We aim to shed further light on these issues at the workshop. As a bonus, we might draft ideas for a future project.

Envisioning the Future of LCA – Data Sourcing and Consumption
Discussion led by Carl Vadenbo, Project Manager at Ecoinvent

The adoption of LCA has grown tremendously in recent years across the academia/research, industry, and public policy sectors. Increasing diversity in methodologies, standards, and practical applications for LCA poses challenges, such as creating reusable or ‘multi-purpose’ (background) LCI data. In this table discussion, we aim to elicit expectations on how LCA data will be sourced, accessed/exchanged, and utilized in the future. We look forward to exploring how the LCA community can leverage collaborative approaches and new tools (e.g., artificial intelligence) to improve data availability, while still ensuring reliability, consistency, and transparency of data inputs and generated results.

Monetary valuation of environmental impacts: access to data
Discussion led by Bengt Steen, Professor Emeritus at Chalmers and Tomas Rydberg Senior Expert LCM

From being a very controversial issue in the LCA community monetary valuation has now become widely accepted and several methods have been developed for LCA. These methods have in turn influenced other areas such as cost-benefit analysis and financial accounting.

Monetary valuations may vary considerably depending on their scope, e.g., what is included, whose values that are expressed, and what assumptions about the future that are made.

The session will discuss what requirements the decision context put on the valuation scope, and how to get access to data. What would a common platform for data exchange look like?

Social LCA & data: What does the future hold?
Discussion led by Léa Braud, Postdoctoral Researcher at KTH

Social LCA (s-LCA) has gained considerable research interest over the past 20 years. Reference scale and impact pathway approaches have both been applied to a large variety of topics. Here, two main challenges will be discussed: (1) the evaluation of social impacts during the use phase and (2) the consideration of future foreground and background scenarios in s-LCA. Both challenges need to be overcome in order to perform prospective s-LCA studies from cradle-to-grave.

How are social issues occurring during the use phase considered in s-LCA? What data can be used to perform prospective s-LCA studies? How can the effects of novel technologies on social impacts be assessed?

LCA data – sufficient data quality for credible and trustworthy communication along the value chain
Discussion led by Ellen Riise, Senior Sustainability Specialist at Essity

One of the earliest achievements of the Swedish Life Cycle Center was to suggest requirements on data quality; already in 1997, the CPM data quality requirements were established. During the first ten years of the competence center, two doctoral theses and one licentiate thesis on data quality were published. Furthermore, the work on an international standard was initiated by the Center with its members, resulting in a technical specification, ISO/TS 14048, on LCA data documentation format.

Since then, there has been a massive development on life cycle thinking and approaches, applications of life cycle assessment methods and a large increase in availability of LCA data. How is sufficient data quality obtained and how to secure that data flowing in all directions keeps the sufficient data quality and fills the needs for the different purposes with credibility and trustworthiness? One example is the strive within EU on empowering the consumers to choose more sustainable products, based on substantiating improved environmental performance with life cycle assessment and making “green” claims. Another example is the reporting of environmental data in Science Based Targets and EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

Make your registration here

Do you have questions about the network conference? Contact us at lifecyclecenter@chalmers.se or phone +46(0)31-772 49 61.

The network conference is arranged within the project Innovation cluster for the life cycle perspective, funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and partners in Swedish Life Cycle Center.