# Life Cycle Assessment of Land Use Trade-Offs in Indoor Vertical Farming +
###### Abstract
Firstly, the role of urban farms on soil health and, secondly, the role renewable energy can play in reducing the consumption of electricity from other energy sources and their effects on soils. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) represents one of the most widely used frameworks for assessing the potential environmental impacts of these systems. It is applied to address the environmental effects of products, processes, and services throughout their entire life cycle [14]. LCA is able to cover a wide variety of pressures and impacts associated with human health, ecosystem and natural resources and enables multi-criteria assessments and, for this purpose, it is extensively applied to analyze the environmental performances of food products, including to prospectively forecast impacts of innovative agri-food systems in their initial planning stages [15]. In recent years, LCA has been applied to hydroponic systems [16,17], urban and peri-urban agriculture [18, 19, 20], and precision farming [21, 22, 23]. Moreover, several recently published studies analyze the application of LCA to vertical farms [24, 25, 26]. Still, most existing LCA studies on CEA do not include some critical environmental indicators related to soil health and land use, limiting their ability to fully assess the system's potential benefits. The UNEP-SETAC Life Cycle Initiative has performed extensive work to develop and systematize impact assessment indicators for soil quality, biotic productivity and biodiversity, but analysis of land use and soil degradation remains underrepresented in LCA [27,28]. Among the land use assessment tools for LCA, the LANCA model has been identified as highly relevant and applicable, with its indicators aligning well with ecosystem service mid- and endpoints and life cycle inventory data [29]. Although the LANCA model is still in its experimental phase, it offers a comprehensive multi-indicator approach to assess land use impacts, accounting for six distinct soil ecosystem servicesand clearly distinguishing between the impacts resulting from land occupation and those from land transformation [30]. Regardless of its possibilities, the LANCA model remains underutilized in current studies of vertical farming and UA systems. This study aims to evaluate the environmental performance of an indoor vertical farm (IVF) integrating CEA and BIA technologies, using a prospective analysis of a not yet operational IVF system previously analyzed by [PERSON], [PERSON] et al. (2022) [7] as a case study. Two energy scenarios were compared through an LCA analysis: a standard operating scenario relying on Portugal's current grid mix and a greener alternative leveraging a rooftop solar panel to utilize photovoltaic electricity, aligned with BIA principles. To enhance the multi-criteria assessment, this study adopts the Environmental Footprint (EF) method, which evaluates 16 impact categories to provide a comprehensive analysis of environmental effects associated with transitioning to cleaner energy in UA. The EF method's normalization and weighting capabilities yield a single, interpretable score, while its structured framework supports hotspot analysis to identify critical processes driving environmental impacts. Additionally, alongside the EF method, the study employs the LANCA model to specifically assess impacts on land use and soil quality. This research seeks to evaluate the added value of integrating these two impact assessment methods while assessing the environmental performance of photovoltaics as an energy solution for UA. It aims to generate insights into the environmental dynamics of CEA and vertical farming systems, provide robust data for evaluating future evaluations, and identify key environmental trade-offs.