Unlocking Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Regenerative Agriculture Evaluation : A case study for IKEA ; Att låsa upp livscykelanalys (LCA) för utvärdering av regenerativt jordbruk : En fallstudie för IKEA

Climate change is escalating rapidly, with agriculture being one of the most significant contributors to this global issue. Regenerative agriculture, a progressive sector within the agricultural industry, holds potential for mitigating these adverse impacts. IKEA, heavily reliant on agricultural products, seeks to determine if investing in regenerative agriculture is beneficial. This thesis aims to evaluate whether Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), particularly the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology used by IKEA, can adequately capture the benefits of regenerative agriculture. The research utilises a comparative and attributional LCA of five hypothetical beef-producing farms: one conventional and four regenerative, employing practices such as avoiding synthetic fertilisers, crop diversity, crop rotation, and rotational grazing. A contribution analysis focuses on the impact categories showing the greatest differences between regenerative and conventional systems, including climate change, which is a critical parameter for stakeholders. The study also compares impact categories from literature with those identified by the software to determine if the model's outputs align with documented findings. An assessment is then conducted to evaluate how accurately the impacts of regenerative agriculture are captured in the modelling process. Key findings reveal that while the PEF methodology includes relevant impact categories for assessing regenerative agriculture, such as soil health, reductions in chemical inputs, greenhouse gas emissions, and yield changes, several impacts are inadequately addressed or overlooked. This inadequacy arises from two aspects: the land use impact category being characterised by aggregated inputs and outputs, complicating the adjustment and analysis of individual parameters, and the incomplete accounting of the full implications of certain impacts. Additionally, this thesis identifies broader limitations of LCA in capturing the impacts of regenerative agriculture. Consequently, this ...