LCA-SPLEEN Project

The ambition of this project is to provide a metric for industry and research in France to support the decarbonisation of industrial processes while minimising the transfer of environmental impact, in anticipation and then in real time. The basic premise of the project is that life cycle assessment (LCA) is the only tool standardised by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) that provides a robust and transparent method for organisations to meet the demands of environmental sustainability on their processes and associated products. The research objectives are as follows :

• To enable the comparison of multiple industrial processes aimed at decarbonisation in a coherent way using LCA-based methodology.
• Supporting the optimisation of the decarbonisation of industrial processes while minimising the transfer of the environmental impact of industrial processes at different stages of development and scales using LCA.
• Supporting the optimisation of the decarbonisation of industrial processes on a regional scale, while minimising the transfer of the environmental impact of industrial processes.
• Enabling LCA to achieve real-time monitoring of processes using dynamic LCA modelling and analytical accounting to enable manufacturers to communicate and optimise their processes in real time in order to minimise their carbon footprint and other relevant environmental impacts.

Support the other areas of the PEPR by carrying out significant LCA studies for the development of new low-carbon processes, collecting LCA data and validating the support tools developed on the basis of an LCA.

4 and a half years – Budget of €1.68M

Type of process category for the decarbonisation of industrial processes (objective, framing, inventory modelling, impacts of methodological choices), support for environmentally positive industrial processes: development of support tools for sustainable innovations (various TRLs) with promising prospects for industrial processes, development of a multi-criteria decision support model for environmental impacts for industrial goods and solutions, in a given territory, real-time monitoring of processes using dynamic LCA modelling and analytical accounting, case studies and validation.

National management of these data within the EU could become essential for implementing the European taxonomy for sustainable finance and the carbon border adjustment mechanism planned by the European Commission. LCA is the only ISO-standardised tool that provides a robust and transparent method for organisations to demonstrate their commitment to environmental sustainability. It is also cross-cutting, as it can be used in a variety of sectors.

11 expected publications, 3 PhD students, 78 post-doc months

The consortium

Institut des Sciences Moléculaire ISM (CNRS, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux INP), Economics & Environmental Evaluation Department (IFPEN), LITEN (CEA), ITAP ( INRAe, Montpellier SupAgro) Institut de Mécanique et d’Ingénierie I2M (CNRS, Université de Bordeaux, ENSAM), Institut de Recherche en Gestion des Organisations (Université de Bordeaux), G-SCOP (CNRS, Grenoble INP, Université Grenoble Alpes), Evaluation environnementale des produits (ADEME). 

Coordination