IRTA has been appointed as a member of the European Commission's Environmental Footprint Technical Advisory Board (EF TAB), a key technical advisory body in the development of methodologies for the environmental assessment of products, services, and organisations at the European level. Until now, Ralph Rosenbaum, a researcher in IRTA's Sustainability in Biosystems programme, had participated in a personal capacity. With this new appointment, IRTA gains institutional visibility and recognition in the field of environmental sustainability assessment and agri-food life cycle analysis.
This milestone highlights the knowledge and technical expertise of our team, which in recent years has grown from three to fifteen professionals specialised in life cycle analysis and environmental sustainability. Our contribution will be particularly relevant in the methodological development of the environmental footprint of agri-food products.
Researcher Ralph Rosenbaum highlights that “this appointment is a great opportunity to position IRTA at the forefront of European and national efforts in developing a quantitative methodology to measure the environmental sustainability of products, materials, services, organisations, and policies.”
The EF TAB works closely with the European Commission to define standardised calculation methodologies that enhance the transparency and comparability of environmental assessments.
The Advisory Board currently has 77 members (14 individual members, 49 institutional, and 14 Member States), but only two are from Spain: IRTA and UVic-UCC. In fact, the Spanish government has yet to appoint a representative to the Member States group. According to researcher Ralph Rosenbaum, “with more than a decade of experience in this body, the IRTA (and UVic) teams bring a Spanish, Catalan, and Mediterranean perspective to the development of this new methodology, which will become the European standard.” He adds that “it will be applied in eco-labelling, green public procurement, ecodesign, European funding, and the assessment of investments and policies under the EU Taxonomy, among others.”
All of this will allow us to influence the definition of environmental standards that will directly impact the competitiveness of the agri-food sector, ensuring that sustainability strategies are developed on a solid scientific basis.
