Technological watch

Climate neutrality, zero pollution, green and digital transition, circular economy and other environmental topics have become top priorities in European policies. In order to reduce negative impacts, policy tries to incentivise “more sustainable” activities and penalise the “less sustainable” ones. The Emission Trading Scheme, the Taxonomy Directive and other initiatives under the fit-for-55 package show that. The basis of each of those must be a reliable and standardised accounting method for environmental impacts.

LCA is such an accounting method. Today, LCA is an elaborated tool that is applied in industry and other fields. However, comparability among different LCA is still a challenge. Different modelling assumptions lead to different results of one and the same product. Interpretation and communication are still difficult.

Policy must and will use LCA methodology to distinguish between more and less sustainable activities, but more standardisation is required to use such results in broader legislative frameworks. The Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) offers such a standardisation already for the fuels and energy sector. The Product Environmental Footprint is developing standards for a full range of products and companies also from other sectors. However, LCA frameworks are still far away from a sufficient level of standardisation. 

The nova Session gives insights into LCA methodology and the difficulties of standardisation in recent application fields in the focus of policy makers. It puts a focus on products from Renewable Carbon as these products and technologies entail some very specific challenges. The session will be split between input presentations from experts and ample time for discussion among the present experts from industry, academia and policy.

Invited speakers include the European Commission, the German Research Center for Biomass (DBFZ) and nova-Institute.

Please find more information here and join us at Cologne Airport or online on 15 September or 14 October.