
Background & project objective
This project aims to develop and apply a methodology to assess the sustainability performance of selected enzymes, alternative proteins and microbial-based products, jointly advancing scientific methods to assess the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability performance of marketed biosolutions and future products. This project furthermore aims to demonstrate the sustainability impact of selected biosolutions applications by estimating their ability of reducing environmental impacts, compared to conventional alternatives to address the world’s challenges. With that, the project will help understand how bio-based solutions can replace unsustainable products and technologies, while not exceeding humanity’s planetary boundaries for different environmental aspects, such as climate change.
The project will enable to implement new assessment methods and tools into product innovation pipelines of companies to truly steer their commercial efforts to maximize sustainability performance. Developed methods will be tested on industrial-scale products, stretching the range of applicability of the novel scientific methods and tools.
Project output
Main project output will focus on main tasks that are listed in below table.
Aspect | Description |
---|---|
Impact evaluation | Evaluate the direct environmental impact of biosolutions – starting from the scientific consensus model USEtox, and adapting the underlying methodology to assess the environmental fate, exposure and effects of biosolution emissions. |
Net benefit assessment | Assess the impacts of substituted products and derive a net benefit (i.e. pollution reduction) of biosolution substitutes in specific product applications. |
Impact benchmarking | Benchmark impact of both substituted products and biosolutions, against selected biophysical (global) boundaries, starting with detergent enzymes’ opportunity to reduce impact on the aquatic environment. |
Biosolutions performance ranking | Estimate the socio-economic performance of Novozymes’ biosolutions and building assessment methods to foresee gains of a world with/without these. |