Objectives

Overall, a detailed concept for a European-wide real-data LCA approach for zero-emission road transport will be elaborated building upon past and ongoing activities and demonstrated with defined use cases. For the uptake by all relevant stakeholders, the consistency and robustness of the proposed approach as well as transparency and respecting confidentiality needs are crucial. Furthermore, the concept hast to enable a retrospective and prospective LCA allowing attributional as well as consequential LCA and consideration of social spects. Consensus on the elaborated concept will be sought amonst all stakeholders.

As part of the conceptualisation, the state oft he art (SotA) regarding methodologies, tools and datasets plus their management will be analysed. Based on identified needs and gaps, the respective building blocks of a single LCA approach will be adapted where needed and harmonised. The following aspects are foreseen as particularly relevant:

• Integration of social and economic aspects – aligning LCA and social LCA (S-LCA) as well as life cycle costing (LCC) approaches.
• Integration of circular economy principles
• Enabling the consideration of emerging technologies and mobility solutions.
• Definition and harmonistion of boundaries for a single LCA approach: definition of representative mobility scenarios as well as impact criteria.

Of utmost importance ist he provision of real-life data required fort he environmental, economic and social assessment of technologies and solutions. Such data should become accessible via a european-wide, standardised database. Within TranSensus LCa, a suitable ontology and ramework for a life cycle inventory (LCI) database will be elaborated and brought into the consensus building process ensuring:

• Conformity with existing activities such as product environmental Footprint (PEF) and
• Confidentiality and anonymity while allwoing for comparability and consistency.

Along with setting up a common LCI database, the continuous management oft he data and their update based on real-life experiences becomes vital for a successful implementation of a single LCA approach. A concept will be derived based on FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse) and intgrated into the overall approach. How LCI data can be effectiveley managed and updated over the lifetime and along he supply chain will also be accounted for, particularly considerating:

• Renewable and CE-based energy sources,
• Critical natural resources and
• Uncertainties regarding upcoming technologies and demands

The TranSensus LCA approach foresees a consistent implementation into the industrial product and business development process to ensure sustainable solutions meeting the Green Deal targets. As such, the environmental, economic and social assessment of current and prospect solutions must become a decisive factor for selecting technologies and business models. Taking into account different types of decision makers (engineers, managers, politicians, …) TranSensus LCa will

• Conceptualise and provide guidelines for front-loading the LCA approach and
• Define and harmonise guidelines for decision-making processes

Besides the conceptualisation of a consensus LCA, the actual consensus-building process ist he main objective of TranSensus LCa. Aiming to involve all relevant stakeholders, consensus will be sought subsequently within consortium and associated partners, with defined advisory boards and the wider stakeholder community (EC, standardisation bodies, Member States and the general public.) consensus building will be based on open science principles implementing expert workshops, online consultations, social media, webinars, publications and other means.

The outcome of the conceptualisation of the LCa, ist subsequent harmonisation and consensus building with all relevant stakeholders will be tranformed into recommendations and gueidelines allowing a fast uptake oft he consensus LCA. Here, also he applicability in other regions like Asia or the US will be taken into account. Besides industry along the relevant value chains, mobility providers and planners, standardisation bodies and legislators are also targeted. Along with recommendations and guidelines, a roadmap for implementation will be provided.

Since road transport increasingly interacts with othe rtransport modes (and therfore cannot be considered in isolation), the proposed consensus LCA should also be applicable to the latter. Furthermore, an uptake of LCA-based product development and a broad acceptance oft he underlying concept will support exploiting synergies with other markets such as stationary battery applications, machine tools or consumer goods. Consequently, TranSensus LCA will identify and describe transfer potentials towards non-road applications.