On 19–20 March 2026, the University of Mons (UMONS) hosted a successful two-day international workshop titled “Boosting the use of Purple Phototrophic Bacteria (PPB) as innovative food and feed ingredients: From metabolism to health-promoting effects.” The University...
Within the European project Purple4Life, our team at the University of Antwerp is exploring how purple phototrophic bacteria can contribute to more sustainable and circular bioprocesses. These metabolically versatile microorganisms have strong potential as...
As new bio-based solutions emerge to transform how we produce food and feed, one fundamental challenge remains: defining and measuring what “sustainable” actually means in practice.
Within the Purple4Life project, Imperial College London is contributing to this challenge through the development of integrated assessment frameworks that combine Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), circularity indicators, and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA).
This approach makes it possible to evaluate purple bacteria–based systems across multiple dimensions, including environmental impact, resource efficiency, and social implications along the value chain.
Rather than focusing on technology development, Imperial’s role is centred on translating complex project data into robust and comparable indicators. These metrics are essential to support informed decision-making and to assess how different process configurations influence overall sustainability performance.
By structuring and analysing data from across the project, this work helps to identify trade-offs, optimise system design, and ensure that sustainability is not assumed, but systematically evaluated.
In this context, sustainability becomes not just a goal, but a measurable and verifiable outcome—critical for enabling the future adoption and scaling of bio-based innovations within the food system.
Learn more: https://purple4life.eu/project-technology-highlight-imperial-college-london-expertise/