PROSUITE

The main goal of PROSUITE is to develop a framework methodology, operational methods and tools for the sustainability assessment of current and future technologies over their life cycle, applicable to different stages of maturity. The project will apply the methodology for four technology cases with close consultation of the stakeholders involved, which includes cases from biorefineries, nanotechnology, information technologies, and carbon storage and sequestration. PROSUITE will show (i) how to combine technology forecasting methods with life cycle approaches, and (ii) how to develop and possibly combine the economic, environmental and social sustainability dimensions in a standardized, comprehensive, and broadly accepted way.
PROSUITE will create a solid research basis for technology characterization, including the identification of decisive technology features, basic engineering modules for estimations of material flows and energy use, and learning curves. For the economic assessment, methods for the assessment for economic and sectoral impacts of novel technologies will be developed and combined with background data for scenario-based life-cycle inventory modelling. For the environmental assessment, state-of-the-art environment indicators will be proposed together with targeted method development for the assessment of geographically explicit land and water use impacts, metal toxicity and outdoor nanoparticle exposure. For the social assessment, a set of quantitative and qualitative social indicators will be selected via participatory approaches, setting the standard for future assessments. The use of various multicriteria assessment methods will be explored to aggregate across indicators. The methods developed will be part of a decision support system, which will be output as open source modular software.