LCA Forum | Collaboration within and beyond the LCA Community: Success Stories, Obstacles and Solutions

Life Cycle Assessment has become a common tool to assess the environmental performance of products and services, as well as of companies, lifestyles and countries. The broad range of applications (e.g., to inform policymakers, to support consumers decisions, to monitor the impacts of a company and select suppliers) and the continuous methodology development involve many stakeholders and collaborators, with whom an LCA practitioner has to cooperate. Differing scientific concepts, languages, or even interests can lead to misunderstandings across disciplinary boundaries. Successful cooperation between scientific fields and other societal domains can therefore be a fundamental asset in LCA.

As these collaborations are beneficial for the success of the LCA, we cordially invite members of the LCA community and experts from other disciplines who worked with LCA practitioners to discuss:

1) Which are the key factors for successful cooperation within and beyond the LCA community?

2) Multiple points of view at the same table to identify the challenges that arise for LCA developers, practitioners and specialists from other fields.

3) What are the obstacles encountered in the translation of know-how from other disciplines into LCA concepts and how to overcome them?

Download: DF79-Programme.pdf

Time	Title	Speaker	Affiliation
09.00	Welcome and introduction	Anna Munwyler and Francesca Rosa	ETH
	Session 1: Successful cooperation processes within and beyond the LCA community	[Francesca Rosa]	ETH
9.10	Keynote: Conceptualize and practice collaborative research towards transdisciplinary knowledge.	Christian Pohl	ETH
9.30	The learnings of good collaboration when LCA is used for policy.	Rainer Zah	(City of Zürich)
9.45	Joining forces to allow consumers to make more informed choices and the respective challenges: Migros M-Check.	Martina Alig (Intep) & Andrea Rota	(Migros)
10.00	Exchange with toxicity experts for characterizing human and ecotoxicological impacts of chemicals: the example of Glasgow Process.	Ralph Rosenbaum*	IRTA, Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology
10.15	Discussion
10.30	Break-out/coffee
	Session 2: Bringing together different viewpoints: the interaction of the LCA community with other disciplines and stakeholders.	[Anna Muntwyler, ETH]	ETH
11.00	Which are the main challenges you experience in LCA when coming to cooperation and interaction? The floor is yours!	Participants’ experiences will be collected and interpreted.
11.55	Biodiversity, environmental values and LCA: an interdisciplinary perspective.	Michael Curran	FiBL, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture
12.10	A behavioural scientist working with LCA practitioners.	Eugenia Polizzi di Sorrentino*	CNR, Italian National Research Council
12:25	Discussion
12.40	Lunch Break
	Short presentations (10 min): open floor	[Francesca Rosa]	ETH
13.40	Introduction
13.45	Using nutritional-LCA to support a more sustainable future.	Ashley Green	Agroscope
13.55	The WISER project: a digital ecosystem to streamline collaboration on GHG assessments.	Didier Beloin-Saint-Pierre	Empa
14.05	Life Cycle Assessment methodology to evaluate the environmental impact of beef manure composting in Mexico.	Andrea Wingartz	National Autonomous University of Mexico
14.15	OIl and Gas Carbon Footprint collective management.	Guy Castelan*	Plastics Europe
14:25	Discussion
14.40	Break-out/coffee
	Session 3: Obstacles and solutions in the translation of scientific know-how into LCA	[Anna Muntwyler]	ETH
15.10	Introduction and icebreaker
15.20	How to make incompatible big data available for LCI and LCIA.	Christopher Oberschelp	ETH
15.35	The SALCAfuture project: agro-environmental expertise translated into LCA.	Jens Lansche	Agroscope
15.50	Collaboration and transparency in providing data for LCA.	Emilia Moreno Ruiz	ecoinvent**
16:05	How will we end up with one comprehensive, consistent and global Environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment method (GLAM)?	Olivier Jolliet*	University of Michigan
16.20	Discussion
	Conclusions and Outlook
16.35	Synthesis and conclusions of the day	Anna Munwyler and Francesca Rosa	ETH
17.00	Closing and farewell

*online presentations

**with a recorded presentation. Carl Vadenbo (ecoinvent) will be on site to answer the questions.

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DF 79 – Collaboration within and beyond the LCA Community: Success Stories, Obstacles and Solutions