European life cycle assessment studies

CE Delft supports European institutions, governments, sector organisations, NGOs and international research consortia with life cycle assessments (LCA) and related research. Our projects focus on supporting sustainable product development, circular economy and sustainable procurement, for instance in the areas of chemicals and plastics, innovative food systems, waste treatment and recycling, and consumer products.

Our LCA team has extensive knowledge of LCA and environmental impact assessment using various standards, including but not limited to ISO 14040-44, ISO 14067, the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and specific Category Rules, organisational footprinting (e.g. GHG Protocol, CSRD, SBTI) and sector-specific guidelines (e.g. Together for Sustainability, WBCSD Life Cycle Metrics for Chemical Products).

In our European projects, this LCA expertise is combined with knowledge on innovative technologies, policy expertise and an academic mindset. Our experience includes work for and with European Commission services (e.g. DG RTD), collaborations in Horizon consortia, sector associations, NGOs and other international project teams. CE Delft adds value to these consortia through its independent position and its ability to bridge academic research, policymaking and market practice.

CE Delft welcomes opportunities for collaboration in studies, consortia, framework contracts and European research initiatives. Please contact Martijn Broeren or Geert Bergsma, co-managers of the LCA team at CE Delft.

Our expertise and services

In addition to environmental footprinting of products and services, the key strengths of CE Delft’s LCA team for work at the European level include:

• Ex-ante LCAs. Our LCA team is highly experienced in conducting environmental analyses of novel technologies and services, especially in their early-stage development. For example, CE Delft experts published the first ex-ante LCA of commercial-scale cultivated meat in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, built on primary data from more than 15 companies. In research consortia, our experts serve as independent assessors of the environmental benefits and possible trade-offs of innovations. Conducting environmental assessments as part of the R&D process enables CE Delft to identify environmental hotspots and provide advice on environmental improvements in line with key technological milestones.
• Policy studies with European relevance. Our experts are frequently asked to conduct LCA-based studies for the Dutch government on complex environmental issues, which are relevant in the European context and used to inform European discussions. For example, we studied how chemical recycling of plastics can be included in EU recycling policies and monitored in member states, the possible effects of setting a target for the use of biobased plastics in vehicles in the EU, and the potential for a mandatory percentage of recycled or biobased plastic for all products used in the EU.
• Prospective scenario development. CE Delft’s LCA team regularly uses scenario modelling to investigate potential future developments and explore environmental impact implications. An example is the carbon footprint model of future plastic systems which was used to study the environmental effects of 2030 plastic scenarios developed by PlasticsEurope and NRK, using insights from LCAs focused on novel (chemical) recycling technologies including pyrolysis, gasification, depolymerization and dissolution. In addition, our team has studied the environmental impact of battery-electric aviation in different scenarios as compared to conventional aviation, including non-CO₂ climate impacts.
• Integrated environmental-economic assessment. We regularly combine LCA results with techno-economic, market and policy analyses. Examples include a techno-economic analysis of cultivated meat, the market uptake analysis conducted for the SUSBIND project, and the Environmental Prices Handbook developed by CE Delft, which allows us to express environmental impacts in monetary terms for use in social cost-benefit analyses and as weighting factors in LCA.
• Critical reviews of LCA studies. We are regularly asked to review LCA studies conducted by other parties according to ISO 14044, including for international companies such as Eastman and Borealis.