Pressure Impact Factors

Pressure-impact factors

Pressure-impact factors are drawn directly from LCIA models (ReCiPe, IW+, GLOBIO). Darwin does not develop or adapt these factors: the platform's contribution is the structuring of input pressure data and output impact indicators.

Inputs

Pressure-impact factors take physical pressure data as input, in one of two forms:

• Physical flows — elementary exchanges from LCI databases used directly as pressure quantities (e.g., land use in m2.yr, water consumption in m3.yr).
• Aggregated midpoint indicators — pressures aggregated across multiple elementary flows into a single indicator, for example:
  • Climate change: total GHG emissions expressed in kg CO2-equivalent (kg CO2eq)
  • Ecotoxicity: toxic emissions aggregated as Toxic Unit equivalents for ecosystems (TUe)

Outputs

Pressure-impact factors translate these inputs into biodiversity impact indicators expressed in the aggregated metrics described above (PDF.m2.yr, species.yr, MSA.km2.yr).

Focus: structuring input data for ecosystem use

The ecosystem use pressure is covered through physical flows. Structuring this input requires mapping LCI ecosystem use types to the relevant impact factor categories.

• Ecosystem use types are based on LCA databases LCIs.
• 54 ecosystem use types are managed covering the 3 biomes.
• 3 additional proprietary labels are added to allow extra accounting options such as contribution to artificialization or contribution to natural ecosystem conversion for instance.

Full list of ecosystem use types and labels

Ecosystem use type	Biome	Natural	Artificial	Ecosystem use category
lake, artificial	Freshwater	No	No	Lake
inland waterbody, unspecified	Freshwater	Yes	No	River
river, artificial	Freshwater	No	No	River
river, natural (non-use)	Freshwater	Yes	No	River
wetland, inland (non-use)	Freshwater	Yes	No	Wetland
seabed, drilling and mining	Marine	No	Yes	Industrial
seabed, infrastructure	Marine	No	Yes	Industrial
seabed, unspecified	Marine	Unknown	No	Sea
annual crop	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, greenhouse	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, irrigated	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, irrigated, extensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, irrigated, intensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, non-irrigated	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, non-irrigated, extensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
annual crop, non-irrigated, intensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
arable land, unspecified use	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
cropland fallow (non-use)	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Crop
heterogeneous, agricultural	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
permanent crop	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
permanent crop, irrigated	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
permanent crop, irrigated, intensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
permanent crop, non-irrigated	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
permanent crop, non-irrigated, extensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
permanent crop, non-irrigated, intensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Crop
bare area (non-use)	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Desert
forest, extensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Forest
forest, intensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Forest
forest, primary (non-use)	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Forest
forest, secondary (non-use)	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Forest
forest, unspecified	Terrestrial	Unknown	No	Forest
grassland, natural (non-use)	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Grassland
grassland, natural, for livestock grazing	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Grassland
shrub land, sclerophyllous	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Grassland
construction site	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
dump site	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
dump site, inert material landfill	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
dump site, residual material landfill	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
dump site, sanitary landfill	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
dump site, slag compartment	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
industrial area	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
mineral extraction site	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Industrial
pasture, man made	Terrestrial	No	No	Pasture
pasture, man made, extensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Pasture
pasture, man made, intensive	Terrestrial	No	No	Pasture
traffic area, rail network	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Transportation
traffic area, rail/road embankment	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Transportation
traffic area, road network	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Transportation
unspecified	Terrestrial	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
unspecified, natural (non-use)	Terrestrial	Yes	No	Unknown
urban, continuously built	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Urban
urban, discontinuously built	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Urban
urban, green area	Terrestrial	No	No	Urban
urban/industrial fallow (non-use)	Terrestrial	No	Yes	Urban

Alien Invasive Species (AIS) Impact Factors

Scientific basis

Alien invasive species constitute one of the five main IPBES pressures on biodiversity, yet their impacts had not previously been integrated into standard LCIA methodologies. Darwin's AIS model is based on the work of Borgelt et al. (2024), which developed country-to-country characterization factors (CFs) quantifying the time-integrated potentially disappeared fraction of native terrestrial species (PDF.yr) per kilogram of goods transported between two countries.

These CFs are derived from global datasets combining:

• First records of alien species introduction
• Native species distribution and conservation status
• Bilateral trade flows (1870-2019)

Key findings from the study confirm that importing goods from certain countries (e.g. China, South Africa, Madagascar into France) can generate higher terrestrial biodiversity impacts from alien species introductions than from the climate change associated with transport emissions — underscoring the importance of this pressure category.

Methodological choices

Based on expert consultation, the following choices were made:

• Average characterization factors are used (rather than marginal factors).
• Regional factors are preferred over global ones, given significant variability between the two approaches.

Metric: PDF.yr — an isolated indicator

The AIS model outputs results in PDF.yr (Potentially Disappeared Fraction of species x year). This metric is not compatible with PDF.m2.yr (used in Impact World+) or species.yr (used in ReCiPe), and no known conversion factors exist between them. CIRAIG experts confirmed this non-fungibility.