What does it really take to build more sustainable food systems, not just in theory, but in practice? This is one of the key questions driving the work of Nofima, an European institute specialising in applied research across the entire food value chain. From raw...
Within the Purple4Life project, Fraunhofer IMTE plays a role in the feed application of purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB) by contributing its expertise in fish nutrition and health. A key part of their work involves evaluating how innovative functional ingredients —...
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/