The future of growing media sustainability lies beyond raw material comparisons

The Journal of Cleaner Production has published a long-waited research concerning the environmental impacts of the most used growing media constituents. “Life cycle assessment of growing media: a baseline dataset for European horticulture” written by Elizabeth Migoni Alejandre, Alexander Sentinella, PhD, Nele Ameloot, Gerald Schmilewski, and Jeroen Weststrate remind us of the important point: all raw materials have environmental impacts and they score differently depending on the measurement such as climate impact, land use and resource consumption. The results remind us that sustainability cannot be reduced to a single metric. Materials perform differently depending on the metric.

We, working in the industry, have long known that all raw materials have environmental impacts, and it is up to our know-how and experience to build solutions to our customers that support plant growth while reducing environmental impacts. As Folkert Moll, our Sustainability Director, points out: “Effective growing media is still the most sustainable growing media. With LCAs we can optimise sustainability performance while making sure our growing media are fit for purpose”.

The publication is an important step forward, and it should encourage continued collaboration between researchers, growers and industry to optimise both growing performance and environmental outcomes. We hope that the researchers next focus on the application level: what is the LCA of a grown product, such as one kilo of tomatoes? Growing media influence crop yields, water consumption, fertiliser efficiency and plant health, all of which contribute to the environmental footprint of the final product. Sustainability should be measured based on a performance of the entire growing system, rather than declaring individual raw materials good or bad.