The Grant Collaboration - The ENCO Series (3): Measuring What Matters: Sustainability, Value and ...

Life Cycle Assessment in EU Projects – Sustainability by Design w/Mirko Busto from ENCO Consulting Check out the episode website (https://www.thegrant.eu/enco-3) In this final episode of The ENCO Series produced in paid collaboration with ENCO Consulting, I’m joined by Mirko Busto to talk about life cycle assessment and why it has become such an important part of EU-funded research and innovation. Mirko explains that sustainability is not something you can judge from one isolated number or one nice-looking innovation claim. A solution may reduce emissions in one place while creating problems somewhere else. That is why life cycle thinking matters: it forces you to look at the whole picture — from materials and manufacturing to use, disposal and possible recycling — and ask whether the innovation really improves the system overall. We also go into the practical side of the work. Mirko explains the three connected methodologies used in sustainability assessment: life cycle assessment, life cycle costing and social life cycle assessment. We talk about how they enter both proposal writing and project implementation, why data collection and benchmarking are so difficult in innovative projects, and how these methods help technical teams avoid hidden trade-offs. Using the SEEDS project as a case, Mirko shows how this plays out in practice when comparing agricultural systems in different MENA contexts and trying to assess future sustainability under climate and resource pressure. Time codes: 01:56 Guest introduction and fly in 04:05 Why sustainability assessment matters 08:12 Sustainability methodologies in EU projects 10:48 Integrating sustainability in innovation projects 17:14 Practical challenges 25:12 Success Story – The SEEDS project