LANCA^® characterization factors

About half of the world's habitable surface is used for agriculture. Land use has increasingly become not only a scientific topic, but also a political and societal discussion. To provide a comprehensive foundation for this, land use aspects must be integrated into the performance of an environmental audit. This is the only way to capture all relevant environmental impacts of a product or service.

The GaBi department has detailed expert knowledge and is a pioneer in integrating land use aspects into environmental auditing. For several years, it has been collaborating with international partners from industry and research on this topic. This knowledge is reflected in the LANCA® framework (LANd Use Indicator Value CAlculation), which was published in 2010. Since then, LANCA® has been continuously developed and is now the most established land use method in environmental auditing.

In the current version of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF, version EF 3.1), LANCA® provides the basis for calculating the “land use” impact category.

As a calculation tool, LANCA® systematically and quantitatively captures land use and its effects within the environmental audit. It calculates characterization factors for various impact categories, including erosion resistance, physio-chemical filtration, groundwater regeneration, mechanical filtration, soil organic carbon, and biodiversity. The method enables a consistent assessment from country-specific to a site-specific level, as all calculations are completely map-based. Effects caused by both occupation (use of land) and transformation (change of land use) are calculated. Furthermore, foreground processes can be calculated using primary data.

The resulting characterization factors are summarized to a dimensionless soil quality index, known as “Land Use - Soil Quality Index”. Currently, four characterization factors (highlighted in dark blue) are included in this index. Furthermore, a characterization factor reflecting biodiversity, is currently being developed, which will lead to a new indicator of “land use - biodiversity”, to be incorporated into the next PEF version.

The BioMAPS (Biodiversity Multi-Scale Assessments of Product Systems) method, which was also developed in the GaBi department in 2023, represents an advanced approach to assessing the ecological impacts on biodiversity. For the first time, the application of this method allows the impacts on local, regional and global biodiversity to be considered within a LANCA® analysis.

The BioMAPS method is based on fundamental ecological, conservation and technical requirements for environmental auditing. It provides users of life cycle assessment (LCA) with a coherent framework for evaluating the impact of product systems on biodiversity. The main goal of this method is to mitigate negative impacts by identifying and implementing targeted measures on a global, regional, and local level. By analyzing biodiversity on three different scales, the BioMAPS method allows a detailed representation of the biodiversity impacts within the evaluated products or systems, while also providing characterization factors based on national averages, for use in existing LCA datasets.

Detailed information on the underlying method can be downloaded via the provided links.

The current version of the LANCA® method is recommended by the European Commission for Calculating the Environmental Footprint of Products (PEF, Product Environmental Footprint [1]) in the environmental category of land use.

[1] European Commission: Single Market for Green Products Initiative – Product Environmental Footprint

For transparency, the previous version of the calculation method, including the characterization factors, is still available (see below).