9th International Conference LCA of Food San Francisco, USA 8-10 October 2014 Representing soil function in agriculture LCA in the Australian context Marguerite Renouf 1,2* , Sandra Eady 3 , Tim Grant 1 , Mike Grundy 4 , Miguel Brandão 5 1 Life Cycle Strategies Pty Ltd., Melbourne, Australia 2 University of Queensland, School of Geography Planning and Environmental Management, Brisbane, Australia 3 CSIRO, Agriculture Productivity Flagship, Armidale, Australia 4 CSIRO, Agriculture Productivity Flagship, Brisbane, Australia 5 Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand  Corresponding author. E-mail: m.renouf@uq.edu.au ABSTRACT Soils function is an important environmental value in Australia particularly for agriculture. However it has not been considered in life cy- cle assessment (LCA) studies to date in Australia, which has precluded its consideration alongside other environmental impacts. The agri- culture sector and LCA community in Australia desire that soil function be captured in national life cycle inventory (LCI) and impact as- sessment frameworks. CSIRO has commenced a project to this end, with the first step being a workshop that brought together prominent soil scientists and LCA researchers to lay some groundwork for the project by i) prioritising the soil function and quality parameters of most importance and relevance for Australia, ii) considering how soil-related indicators can assign with evolving land use impact assess- ment frameworks, and iii) exploring the utilisation of spatial datasets to generate LCI for flows related to soil function to allow for more regionally-specific assessment of soil-related impacts. Keywords: soil, LCI, LCIA, Australia, national inventory databases, agriculture, soil carbon, erosion, acidification 1. Introduction This paper describes the outcomes from an Australian workshop, at which a proposed approach for integrating indicators of soil function and quality into the Australian national life cycle inventory database was developed. Soil function and qualities and their influence on productivity and ecosystem services have been under- represented in LCA to date. Recent efforts by the UNEP SETAC Life Cycle Initiative have devised an impact assessment framework that captures the eco-system service functions of land, including soil functions (Koellner et al. 2013). However this has yet to translate into the representation of soil-related impacts in life cycle studies. Soil-related impacts are pertinent to many production systems that involve transformation of land. However interest in soil impacts has been expressed most keenly by those working on agriculture-based production systems. This is because soil function is inherently linked to agricultural productivity, and the long-term sustainability of agriculture relies on protecting and enhancing it. Hence there is more incentive to influence the protection of soil in agriculture than in any other sector. The absence of soil function considerations in LCA to date is in contrast to the recognition of soil-related problems by the agriculture sector. Compared to soils on other continents, Australia’s soils are very old, highly weathered and relatively infertile (DAFF, 2014). While there are areas of highly fertile soil, Australia’s soils often have poor structure with low levels of organic matter and are affected by salinity, sodicity, and acidification, and in some regions are subject to wind and water erosion. So, for Australia in particular, declining soil quality is a major concern. The level of investment by the agriculture sector and governments to rectify soil- related impact in Australia (estimated at A$124 million in 2011; DAFF 2014) is higher than for other environmental impacts such as eutrophication and pesticide impacts on sensitive environments and global warming. Therefore the agriculture sector and LCA community in Australia desire that soil function and qualities be captured in national inventory and impact assessment frameworks. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) commenced a project to this end, with the first step being a workshop that brought together soil scientists and LCA researchers to lay some groundwork for the project. This project follows on from a prior program of work completed in 2013 to establish a national life cycle inventory (LCI) dataset for Australian agricultural processes (AusAgLCI) (Eady et al. 2013) which is available within the AusLCI database (alcas.asn.au/AusLCI). The developed data sets currently contain inventory that