Towards an optimal coverage of ecosystem services in LCA

Our society relies on the sustained provisioning of ecosystem services (ES), while such provisioning has been negatively affected by human activities. Recently, several authors proposed indicators for the assessment of ES in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies and developed corresponding characterization factors for integration in the impact assessment phase of LCA (LCIA). However, the vast majority of these indicators are still not operational and not a single study has presented a comprehensive list of ES for inclusion in LCIA. As a result, the individual efforts to incorporate ES in LCIA lack guidance from a framework to comprehensively assess and prioritize ES for inclusion in LCIA. This study addresses the aforementioned knowledge gap, and presents an original framework for the optimal coverage of ES in LCIA. We first identify, describe and visualize ecosystem services assessed currently (directly and indirectly) included in the widely applied LCIA method ReCiPe2016. Next, we propose an optimal coverage of ES in LCIA consisting of 15 categories of ES, including provisioning, regulation and maintenance, and cultural services, derived from the ES classification method CICES V5.1. Next, we identify the gap between the current and optimal coverage, consisting of 11 ES categories currently not covered by ReCiPe2016. As a proposal to help accelerate the incorporation of missing ES, we finally prioritize missing categories using available monetary valuation data, resulting in a ranking of ES categories to be included in LCIA. The four categories that rank highest are “Regulation of flows and protection from extreme events”, “Mediations of wastes, toxics and nuisances”, “Water conditions” and “Aesthetic value”. Our analysis and prioritization helps setting a research agenda for the scientific community to collaboratively and comprehensively incorporate missing ES categories in LCIA.