Environmental impacts of agrifood and seafood -how to get it right

At RISE we have unique knowledge about the entire food system, combined with advanced LCA-competence. This gives us the opportunity to develop both production and products meeting high environmental standards. By generating a systematic understanding we can support companies, public bodies and organizations prioritize measures towards sustainability.

Environmental sustainability is very complex and there are numerous conflicts between goals. Several environmental impacts are relevant for food systems, and the variety between production systems are huge. Plant production, animal production, fisheries, aquaculture and horticulture all have unique challenges and possibilities. The emerging bioeconomy requires a re-formulation and new understanding of the concept “environmental sustainability, on a higher systems level. We need to manage and quantify impacts from circular and cascading material flows from different systems (e.g. energy, agriculture, biomaterials). To operationalize environmental improvement simplifications are needed, which in turns needs to be done without losing relevant information.

The combination of production- and LCA competence gives opportunities to develop useful knowledge on relevant, concrete and applicable measures in all types production systems.

One example is mapping of environmental footprint of supply chains and identification of improvement measures for production systems, products, and product portfolios.

Analyses of biorefineries and their products as well as impacts on surrounding systems is an important part to shape the future food production. Our methods and tools are tailored for different production systems to handle specific aspects.

Aggregating results from detailed studies into indicators is one way of making knowledge useful for decision making at different levels.

At RISE we facilitate food system’s actors possibilities to contribute to a sustainable society in an efficient and concrete ways. We also brings solid background for communication on sustainability.