Purpose Recently, an update of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method ReCiPe was released: ReCiPe 2016. The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of using this update instead of the previous version: ReCiPe 2008. Do the absolute outcomes change significantly and if so, does this lead to different conclusions and result-based recommendations? Methods Life cycle assessments (LCAs) were conducted for 152 foods for which cradle-to-plate inventories were available and that together are estimated to account for 80% of the total greenhouse gas emissions, land use and fossil resource depletion of food consumption in the Netherlands. The LCIA was performed on midpoint and endpoint level, with both ReCiPe 2008 and 2016, and using the three perspectives provided by ReCiPe. Both the uses of the global-average characterisation factors (CFs) and the Dutchspecific CFs were explored. Results and discussion Results showed a strong correlation between LCAs performed with ReCiPe 2008 and with 2016 on midpoint and endpoint level, with Spearman's rank correlation between 0.85 and 0.99. Ranking of foods related to their overall environmental impact did not differ significantly between methods when using the default hierarchist perspective. Differences on endpoint level were largest when using the individualist perspective. The predicted average absolute impact of the foods studied did change significantly when using the new ReCiPe, regardless of which perspective was used: a larger impact was found for climate change, freshwater eutrophication and water consumption and a lower impact for acidification and land use. The use of Dutch CFs in ReCiPe 2016 leads to significant differences in LCA results compared with the use of the global-average CFs. When looking at the average Dutch diet, ReCiPe 2016 predicted a larger impact from greenhouse gas emissions and freshwater eutrophication, and a lower impact from acidification and land use than ReCiPe 2008. Conclusions The update of ReCiPe leads to other LCIA results but to comparable conclusions on hotspots and ranking of food product consumption in the Netherlands. Looking at the changes per product due to the update, we recommend updating endpoint-level LCAs conducted with ReCiPe 2008, especially for products that emit large amounts of PM 2.5 or consume large amounts of water within their life cycle. As new and updated methods reflect the scientific state of art better and therefore include less model uncertainty, we recommend to always use the most recent and up-to-date methodology in new LCAs.

Governments contribute to the transition toward a circular economy (CE) by using criteria in their procurement processes that trigger the supply of circular products and services, namely circular public procurement (CPP). CPP practices are emerging in Europe. However, the effect of CPP is not yet monitored and hence remains unclear. What is the efficacy of CPP in reducing the impacts of goods and services? Analyzing CPP efficacy is an important next step in exploring how to improve its application. This paper presents the results of an effect evaluation of CPP in the Netherlands, using a sample-based mixed-method approach in combination with life cycle assessment for analyzing CPP-induced reduced impacts on global warming and material use. Two thirds of the procurement tenders in which circular procurement criteria were applied in 2017 and 2018 did not result in reduced environmental impacts or reduced material use. One third, however, showed that, as well as how CPP can contribute to the transition toward a CE. The identified remaining challenges are (1) to apply criteria that are ambitious enough to challenge the market and (2) to keep attention on the circularity ambitions up during the implementation phase of the procurement process. Effect indicators are proposed to complement the current monitoring practices of CPP implementation.

Introduction Many methodological papers report a comparison of methods for LCA, for instance comparing different impact assessment systems, or developing streamlined methods. A popular way to do so is by studying the differences of results for a number of products. We refer to such studies as quasi-empirical meta-comparisons. Review of existing approaches A scan of the literature reveals that many different methods and indicators are employed: contribution analyses, Pearson correlations, Spearman correlations, regression, significance tests, neural networks, etc. Critical discussion We critically examine the current practice and conclude that some of the widely used methods are associated with important deficits. A new approach Inspired by the critical analysis, we develop a new approach for meta-comparative LCA, based on directional statistics. We apply it to several real-world test cases, and analyze its performance vis-à-vis traditional regression-based approaches. Conclusion The method on the basis of directional statistics withstands the tests of changing the scale and unit of the training data. As such, it holds a promise for improved method comparisons.