The UNESCO Chair Participates in SETAC Europe 2026

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Under the theme “Embrace the Outlier: In Science, Regulations and Networks,” the conference brought together researchers, policymakers, industry representatives, and environmental professionals from across Europe and beyond to discuss emerging challenges and innovations in sustainability science, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), ecotoxicology, and evidence-based environmental governance.

During the conference, Sandra presented the poster: “Modelling Ecolabel Certification Credibility under Climate Uncertainty: Toward Integrated Sustainability Assessment”.

This research was developed within the SMART-FOODPRINT project in collaboration with Professor Ana Espinola-Arredondo (Washington State University, School of Economic Sciences) and colleagues from the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF).

The work explores how climate uncertainty can affect the credibility of fishery ecolabel certifications and their capacity to effectively signal environmental performance. Using a game-theoretic signalling framework, the study analyses the strategic interactions between fishers seeking certification and monitoring authorities operating under incomplete information.

The results highlight that certification credibility depends not only on environmental conditions, but also on institutional design. While moderate certification costs and higher environmental risk may strengthen the informative value of ecolabels, excessively low certification costs or overly generous subsidies could reduce certification credibility and increase monitoring requirements.

By integrating behavioural and institutional uncertainty into sustainability assessment, this research contributes to the development of more adaptive and risk-informed certification systems, complementing traditional Life Cycle Assessment approaches. The results of this research are currently under review and are expected to be published soon in the Journal of Environmental Management.

In her reflections, Ceballos-Santos highlighted the value of participating in SETAC Europe 2026 beyond the presentation of the research itself. “The conference provided an excellent opportunity to observe some of the major methodological transformations currently shaping the Life Cycle Assessment field,” she noted, “particularly regarding the integration of uncertainty, dynamic modelling, and emerging sustainability challenges into LCA approaches.”

Several emerging trends stood out throughout the conference:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are increasingly being integrated into LCA methodologies, particularly for estimating characterisation factors and improving environmental databases.

• Ecotoxicity research is rapidly expanding to address emerging pollutants, including plastics, tyre and road wear particles, pharmaceutical emissions, and chemical additives.

• Growing attention is being devoted to uncertainty analysis, normalisation, weighting, and the harmonisation of impact assessment methodologies across sectors.

• Environmental assessment is progressively evolving from a measurement-oriented discipline toward a broader decision-support framework capable of integrating environmental risk, behavioural responses, and policy relevance.

The conference also reinforced the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and methodological innovation in improving sustainability governance and supporting more robust environmental decision-making processes.

This participation contributes to the ongoing research activities of the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change and reflects its commitment to advancing science-based sustainability assessment frameworks.

This research is part of the project PID2022-137023OB-C32, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU.