The use of magnesium and its alloys is limited by their high susceptibility to corrosion, that may be attributed to the presence of critical impurities and the high chemical reactivity of the magnesium itself. Such characteristic justifies the great interest of performing coating technologies for the protection of magnesium parts by using environmentally friendly and cheap processes, with particular relevance in the framework of the European context. While magnesium technologies are rapidly taking advantages of the research results obtained during the last years, some more efforts are necessary to evaluate the impacts of its production on the environment and on the use of existing energy resources. Following this main lines, the paper presents some results obtained in NANOMAG ("Development of Innovative Nanocomposite Coatings for Magnesium Casting Protection" - Growth Programme n. 40548), a research project sponsored by the European Commission in which magnesium and its coating processes are evaluated taking into account also their environmental performances with a life-cycle approach.