It's Complicated: Corporate Sustainability and the Uneasiness of Life Cycle Assessment

Freidberg, Susanne

doi:10.1080/09505431.2014.942622

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…LCA can help prevent “burden shifting,” from one life cycle phase to another and from one environmental impact category to another, especially when products and policies are in the design stage. Firms look to LCA for quantitative indicators that can help them identify the “hotspots” of environmental impact and ways to reduce them (Freidberg, ). In a similar vein, life cycle management draws on life cycle data to organize, analyze, and manage product‐related information and activities with the aim of continuous improvement along the product life cycle (Remmen, Jensen, & Frydendal, ; Seuring, ).…”

Section: Conceptual Starting Pointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment calculative practices in the Swedish biofuel sector: Governing biofuel sustainability by standards and numbers

Lazarevic

Martin

2018

Bus Strat Env

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Since the introduction of the European Union's Renewable Energy Directive (RED), biofuel‐producing firms are required to perform life cycle assessment (LCA) based greenhouse gas accounting in order to fulfill part of directive's sustainability criteria. This paper adopts the concepts of “governing by standards” and “governing by numbers” to understand the LCA practices of biofuel‐producing firms and assess the critical moments of friction between these alternative modes of governance. We focus our analysis on the use of LCA in the Swedish biofuel industry, undertaking case studies on the use of LCA in four Swedish biofuel‐producing firms and semistructured interviews with industry associations and governmental bodies. Results indicated that the RED not only influences what biofuel sustainability entails but also structures the calculative practices used to measure it. At the same time, our results point to friction between achieving regulatory compliance and improving biofuel sustainability.

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Section: Conceptual Starting Pointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment calculative practices in the Swedish biofuel sector: Governing biofuel sustainability by standards and numbers

Lazarevic

Martin

2018

Bus Strat Env

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“…Despite their apparent usefulness, it is important to not use simplification techniques uncritically or as a substitute for LCA know-how. Also, LCA analysts may have to balance the desire for simple and clear outcomes with the ambition for accurate and thus more complicated representations of the product value chain (Freidberg 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ways to get work done: a review and systematisation of simplification practices in the LCA literature

Beemsterboer

Baumann

Wallbaum

2020

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose Within the field of life cycle assessment (LCA), simplifications are a response to the practical restrictions in the context of a study. In the 1990s, simplifications were part of a debate on streamlining within LCA. Since then, many studies have been published on simplifying LCA but with little attention to systematise the approaches available. Also, despite being pervasive during the making of LCA studies, simplifications remain often invisible in the final results. This paper therefore reviews the literature on simplification in LCA in order to systematise the approaches found today. Methods A review of the LCA simplification literature was conducted. The systematic search and selection process led to a sample of 166 publications. During the review phase, the conceptual contributions to the simplification discourse were evaluated. A dataset of 163 entries was created, listing the conceptual contributions to the simplification debate. An empirically grounded analysis led to the generative development of a systematisation of simplifications according to their underlying simplifying logic. Results and discussion Five simplifying logics were identified: exclusion, inventory data substitution, qualitative expert judgment, standardisation and automation. Together, these simplifying logics inform 13 simplification strategies. The identified logics represent approaches to handle the complexities of product systems and expectations of the users of LCA results with the resources available to the analyst. Each simplification strategy is discussed with regard to its main applications and challenges. Conclusions This paper provides a first systematisation of the different simplification logics frequently applied in LCA since the original streamlining discussion. The presented terminology can help making communication about simplification more explicit and transparent, thus important for the credibility of LCA. Despite the pervasiveness of simplification in LCA, there is a relative lack of research on simplification per se, making further research describing simplification as a practice and analysing simplifications methodologically desirable.

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“…In part, the committee found recent research in this field especially abundant; its report noted that "several relevant studies" came out even after the NEL had finished compiling the evidence portfolio (DGAC 2015a). This abundance reflects high demand for information about different foods' farm-to-fork environmental impacts, on the part of policymakers (especially in Europe), nongovernmental organizations, and above all the food industry (Freidberg 2014). Food companies are especially interested in LCA's ability to help them identify resource-saving measures that will both cuts costs and demonstrate improved sustainability, at least in efficiency terms (as I discuss later, those measures can come with tradeoffs).…”

Section: Model Evidence? Nutrition Meets Life Cycle Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wicked Nutrition: The Controversial Greening of Official Dietary Guidance

Freidberg

2016

Gastronomica

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In 2015, controversy over the Dietary Guidelines for Americans reached a new level when the government-appointed Dietary Guidance Advisory Committee (DGAC) recommended that those guidelines promote more sustainable diets, particularly those lower in animal-based foods. Although the committee found ample scientific evidence that such a shift would be a “win-win” for Americans' health as well as the environment, it met with fierce opposition on both counts, and not only from the livestock industry. This suggests how sustainable diet guidance poses a classic wicked problem, meaning one characterized by high levels of complexity, uncertainty, and epistemological conflict. While relationships between food, bodies, and environments are inevitably complex and uncertain, the controversy surrounding DGAC's recommendation offers an opportunity to explore how the scientific evidence on dietary sustainability is actually produced, and how it does or does not speak to other knowledge about eating for bodily and ecological health. To do this I look first at the research behind DGAC's endorsement of diets high in plant-based versus animal-based foods, and then at select responses in the public comments. The contrast not only highlights the incommensurability of modeled versus experiential evidence, but also suggests that efforts to promote more sustainable food consumption cannot credibly ignore questions (however unresolved) about what constitutes more sustainable production.

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It's Complicated: Corporate Sustainability and the Uneasiness of Life Cycle Assessment

Cited by 17 publications

References 72 publications

Life cycle assessment calculative practices in the Swedish biofuel sector: Governing biofuel sustainability by standards and numbers

Life cycle assessment calculative practices in the Swedish biofuel sector: Governing biofuel sustainability by standards and numbers

Ways to get work done: a review and systematisation of simplification practices in the LCA literature

Wicked Nutrition: The Controversial Greening of Official Dietary Guidance

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