Sustainability assessment methods

The consumption, use and production of biological and technological products impact environmental and human health.

To assess these impacts we use and combine various state-of-the-art sustainability assessment methods. Life cycle assessments (LCA) allow the systematic identification of environmental impacts over the entire life cycle. Relevant environmental impacts are taken into account during the extraction of raw materials, production, use phase and disposal or recycling of the product, as well as any upstream and downstream processes. LCA can be supplemented by other methods for a more holistic assessment, such as material flow analysis (MFA), life cycle costing (LCC), social life cycle analysis (SLCA), cost-efficiency analysis (CEA), cost-benefit analysis (CBA), multi-criteria analysis (MCA) or health risk and impact assessment (HRIA). We include stakeholders along the production, consumption and use systems with participatory methods such as Delphi studies, citizen science and communities of practice.