Aligning Life Cycle Assessment methods and bio-based sectors for improved environmental performance

The ALIGNED project intends to deliver a modelling framework to assess and optimise the environmental and socio-economic performance of bio-based industries. ALIGNED will advance the scientific field of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and collaborate with industries and representatives from five bio-based sectors: construction, woodworking, textile, pulp and paper, and bio-chemicals. The ALIGNED framework will allow accurately to model key aspects not covered in current practice: the competition for biomass and for land, dynamic and time-specific carbon accounting, and biodiversity and socio-economic impacts. ALIGNED will also develop future energy and resource scenarios derived from integrated assessment models, and a consistent approach to uncertainty assessment.


ALIGNED is funded under the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021-2022 Destination – Clean environment and zero pollution, Call HORIZON-CL6-2021-ZEROPOLLUTION-01-06: Increasing the environmental performance of industrial processes in bio-based sectors: construction, woodworking, textiles, pulp and paper and bio-chemicals, Horizon Europe grant agreement N° 101059430.

The transition towards a sustainable economy is dependent on consistent and comparable environmental assessments of bio-based products. However, in practice today the methods to assess the impact of bio-based products give incomparable results, thus confusing decision-making. The models and tools developed in ALIGNED will allow to perform high-quality assessment studies across the bio-based sectors, with industrial relevance and interoperability.