A calculator based on harmonized methods is essential for determining the environmental impact of livestock production and contributing to the sustainable development of the sector by improving the animal feeding. To this end, the International Feed Industry Federation set up the Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) to support the environmental assessment of livestock supply chains and to stimulate the continuous improvement of environmental performance in the feed industry.

In September 2019, the GFLI was established formerly as a legal nonprofit entity, to expand its work and provide greater access to environmental data on feed ingredients, in order to improve quality in assessing and reporting the environmental impacts associated to feed and animal protein production.

One of the Institute’s initiatives is a free online Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) feed database, containing high quality datasets for feed ingredients. Based on FAO LEAP methodology on feed supply chains and compliant with the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) of the European Commission which used FAO LEAP guidelines as reference, the GFLI database aims to be a reference tool for assessing and benchmarking feed industry impact and environmental improvement.

The first version of the database, launched in December 2018, includes about 1,200 datasets developed for the European Union, United States and Canada. Over the past months, it has been updated with additional environmental impact information on 962 main feed ingredients and a more condensed list of deliverables. The new version of the GFLI database will be available soon.

Download the GFLI database

Further readings:

FAO LEAP guidelines on animal feeds supply chains

PEFCR Feed for food-producing animals