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Environmental analysis should be performed early in the Research and Development (R&D) phases of new technologies to timely determine potential impact and, thereby, include prevention and minimization of unfavorable ecological impact into the innovation process. Here, we demonstrate the application of anticipatory Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on novel anti-reflective coatings used for greenhouses in the Netherlands. Currently, these coating technologies are developed at the laboratory scale (lab-scale), but they have the potential to be transferred to commercial scale on the short term. What-if scenarios have been used to scale-up the coating production process to pilot and industrial scales. The scenarios were developed by optimizing the laboratory scale coating production parameters. A cradle-to-grave LCA has been done to compare novel coatings with conventional coatings. The functional unit has …