Tim Grant to participate in task force at LCI Pellston Workshop® in Valencia, Spain

Tim will be participating in the a Pellston Workshop®, organised as part of the UN environment Life Cycle Initiative, working on the task force on Ecosystem Services (with focus on soil quality). This workshop will run for 6 days and will support the development of "Global Guidance for Life Cycle Impact Assessment Indicators and Methods" (GLAM), in Valencia, Spain at the end of June 2018. Due to the importance of soil to most economies there is already a very substantial scientific understanding of soil quality attributes and the impact of different management regimes on attributes. The challenge using this information in the LCA context is partly to deal with the heterogeneity of soil as it is found in the landscape and how to deal with the many local factors which affect soil quality such as farming practice and climate. The tasks will include: Identification of datasets for soil quality models, completing a review of available soil quality models, implementing the selected model(s) in a variety of production systems and geographies, and linking soil function contribution to other impact categories. The GLAM project aims to create a library of recommended impact assessment factors linked through a global nomenclature system, to improve the consistency and harmonization of LCA studies. Continuing from the successful work on the first batch of impact indicators (climate change, water use, particulate matter, land use impacts on biodiversity), GLAM is currently working on the consensus building related to: acidification & eutrophication; eco-toxicity; human toxicity; mineral primary resources; ecosystem services (focus on soil quality); and crosscutting issues. The Life Cycle Initiative is a public-private, multi-stakeholder partnership enabling the global use of credible life cycle knowledge by private and public decision makers. Hosted by UN Environment, the Life Cycle Initiative is at the interface between users and experts of Life Cycle approaches. It provides a global forum to ensure a science-based, consensus-building process to support decisions and policies towards the shared vision of sustainability as a public good. The Initiative facilitates the application of life cycle knowledge in the global sustainable development agenda in order to achieve global goals faster and more efficiently.