Life cycle sustainability assessment outlook of plant-based protein processing and product formulations

Abstract

The gradual popularity and adoption of plant-based proteins as alternative sources have provided the need to ascertain their sustainability in production, processing, manufacturing, and consumption. In response to this, researchers in the field have used Techno-economic Assessment (TEA), Life Cycle Costing (LCC), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) tools and metrics to analyze the sustainability of plant-based protein food ingredients and product formulations. This critical review is the first of its kind that pools together all eligible TEA, LCC, LCA, and S-LCA studies on plant-based proteins, to assess the methodologies used and further discuss the impacts reported to understand the general outlook of sustainability in this growing field. Studies were sourced from online scientific databases and went through screening with specified exclusion criteria, which led to 28 eligible studies used for the review. The studies were grouped under the economic, environmental and social dimensions and were reviewed under their methodological aspects and findings reported. From the review, LCC, TEA and S-LCA have received very minimal attention compared to studies on LCA. Moreover, no study considers the complete sustainability of plant-based protein production under all three dimensions: economic, environmental, and social. Regarding the methodological aspects, all studies follow the standards and guidelines stipulated. This review highlights achievements and challenges identified in terms of missing databases, post-analysis, and stakeholder perspectives. More evidence is still required to show that plant-based proteins have higher sustainability performance than traditional animal-based proteins. These include, but are not limited to, developing more databases and performing more complete studies, which include scenario, uncertainty and sensitivity analyses. Finally, we propose salient pathways for a more holistic sustainability assessment of plant-based protein production.