A Life cycle assessment, (or analysis), is a multi-step evaluation process to detail the environmental effects of a product throughout its entire life. This is typically from ‘cradle-to-grave’, but in the case of materials, which are subsequently formed into a customer’s product, this is more likely to be ‘cradle-to-gate’. By revealing the environmental impacts, it enables a producer and/or their customers, to compare with other products and to identify focus areas for reduced impact.
In order to undertake a meaningful LCA, a product needs to have a constant, fully defined process, with measurable inputs and outputs. Performing an analysis on a product or process that is still subject to change can be futile, as each new change will require repeating what can be an expensive and lengthy LCA process.
It should not be assumed that biomaterials are inherently more sustainable. There is currently a lack of public LCAs in the biomaterial space. This speaks to the immaturity of biomaterial development; for most innovators it is still too early to perform such an analysis. Several things need to be in place for an LCA process to make sense:
Capacity: 16 million m2 / year
In the above example, it took decades for Clarino™ to scale from pilot to commercial production, and another few decades to optimize their process for sustainability. With commercial production scaled, the company had data available to analyze their process using LCAs and the funding to model changes for environmental benefits.
Product development teams may be issued guidance around preferred certifications or standards. In the absence of these, LCAs provide impact insights allowing for comparison across materials.
LCAs can provide data allowing for evaluation of individual suppliers.
For these teams understanding product benefits and potential risks is essential to being able to communicate accurately and for competitive edge.
For brands to take a strategic lead LCAs can provide transparency to help avoid risks.
We are starting to see LCAs being published by some of the more established biomaterial startups. By ‘established’, we mean the companies in the table below were founded on average 11 years ago; still extremely young by industry standards. Most have published impact data of some kind only after 10 or more years into their innovation journey.
As our table below shows, initial impact data is being presented in various forms. From PDFs or blogs on company websites, to papers published in general or more scientific journals.
Earlier stage innovators may be attempting to track some impact data internally which they may or may not be prepared to share with brand partners.
Innovators understand the importance of conducting an LCA, and often begin working early on to identify what data to track, but usually will wait to share findings until further on in their development journey. Since initial data may bear no relation to the final scaled process, innovators may be concerned they will be unfairly judged if compared with products that reached commercial scale decades ago and have had the benefit of decades of efficiency improvements.
The younger the company, the more complex the technology, the further they are from pilot or commercial scale, the less likely they are to have an LCA.
For example, in the table below, the most complex technology is Spiber’s Brewed Protein™ fiber. This technology entails designing and genetically engineer a new organism to produce novel proteins, optimize fermentation conditions for that organism, developing downstream processing to extract and purify the protein, formulation of a performance dope, before extrusion into a fiber which may need optimizing by iterating right back to the genetics.
Conversely, the process for Modern Meadow’s Bioleather1 material is relatively simple. It formulates its Bio-Alloy™ with off-the-shelf ingredients (soy protein powder, pigments, biobased polymers such as PU) and employs existing infrastructure, such as roll–to-roll textile coating technology, with their partner Limonta.
It's important to note that the systems boundaries used for an LCA will have a significant impact on the final result. As yet there is no database to derive impact data for new materials and processes.
Even though some new biomaterials may be positioned as leather alternatives, drawing comparison to leather is problematic, not least because leather itself is a category, not a single material.
European Platform on LCA (EPLCA). 2023. European Commission
Environmental Footprint Life Cycle Assessment 2023. European Commission
Clarino™ Microfiber - How it's made. 2022. Kuraray Co., Ltd.
Clarino™ Microfiber- History - luxury microfibres for various applications. 2021. Kuraray Co., Ltd.
Clarino™ Microfiber - Environment & Sustainability. 2021.Kuraray Co., Ltd.
Tirennina™ - Water Based Microfiber. 2022.Kuraray Co., Ltd.
Kuraray Environmental Activities Report. 2002. Kuraray Co., Ltd.
Life cycle assessment of MycoWorks’ Reishi™: the first low-carbon and biodegradable alternative leather. 2022. Environmental Sciences Europe
Life-cycle assessment of Bioleather1. 2022. ScienceDirect
Assessing our impact: the carbon footprint of MIRUM®. 2022. Natural Fiber Welding
Environmental Footprint of Brewed Protein™ Fiber. 2023. Spiber
Federico Brugnoli Quote: Leather Carbon Footprint Review of the European Standard EN 16887:2017. 2017. United Nations Industrial Development Organisation