Agroscope and Quantis launch Database for environmental footprints of food products

The Swiss Federal Research Station Agroscope and the consulting firm Quantis, the co-founders of the project, announced today the launch of the World Food LCA Database (WFLDB). This project aims at bringing together experts from all stakeholders of the food supply chain to develop a comprehensive and up-to-date inventory database for accurate life cycle assessments (LCA) in the food sector. Two governmental institutions and nine companies of the food sector have already joined the ranks of the project and recruitment is continuing. 

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a scientific method used to quantify impacts throughout all activities occurring over the life cycle of a product or service, from extracting natural resources to managing generated waste. Currently, one of the major limitations of LCAs in this sector is the lack of consistent, up-to-date, comprehensive and transparent inventory data for food products and processes. The creation of the World Food LCA Database responds to the high demand for such data, especially in the food sector.

The WFLDB project is an independent project of Agroscope and Quantis that creates knowledge for the public by publishing datasets and the methods applied for the modelling. The funding partners are: the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), Bayer, the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), General Mills, Kraft Foods, Mars, Mondelēz International, Monsanto, Nestlé, Syngenta and Yara. The recruitment of new partners continues and the project is planned to be completed in 2015. Yves Loerincik, CEO of Quantis explains: “We are proud to have already been able to bring together these organizations of the food sector and we are looking forward to welcoming other participants in the next months.

The database will provide over 200 datasets comprising of various agricultural crops and animal products including different production schemes as well as food transformation, storage and transport processes. The objective is to provide reliable, consistent and up-to-date data. The scientific modelling principles applied are in line with international standards. All datasets created within the project will be published and the database will be compatible with existing LCA software. 

Founded in 2006 as Ecointesys, Quantis started out as a venture by EPFL researchers seeking to help businesses reduce their environmental impacts. The idea was so engaging that the young start-up, which initially employed only two people, has made significant headway in the past five years. In fact, in 2008, the company extended its activities to the United States. In 2009, it adopted a multinational structure and the new name Quantis and opened offices in France and Canada, integrating a spin-off of the CIRAIG in Montréal, one of the world's leading life cycle research centres. Today Quantis employs close to 60 people.