LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 1C: ECODESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
tomato crop in a multi-tunnel greenhouse under Southern European climate conditions, and a tomato crop
and a rose crop in Venlo glass greenhouses under Central European climate conditions. Each spreadsheet has
four sheets disclosed to users: Instructions, Input Data, Total Results and Detailed Results. Users can simulate
their own production system by following a few easy steps: selection of one scenario, data entry and
consultation of results.
The Input Data sheet consists of a questionnaire structured around different topics. A link to a fertiliser
calculator is available to calculate the amount of total nutrients based on the specific fertiliser doses applied
to the crop. These user data are primary data used to calculate results, along with secondary data from international
databases. Datasets from Ecoinvent database 2.2 (Ecoinvent, 2010) were used for processes such as
the manufacture of greenhouse components (metal, plastic and glass), substrate, pesticides, means of transport
and disposal. The average European electricity production mix was the process selected to evaluate the
environmental impact of electricity consumption. The LCAFoods database (Nielsen et al., 2003) was used
for the manufacture of generic fertilisers N, P2O5 and K2O. The questionnaire provides default data for reference
production systems that can be used if users do not have specific data.
The Total Results and Detailed Results sheets display results in figures and graphs for the user’s production
system under study and the reference situation by functional unit and impact category. Users can compare
their own results with those of the reference situation. The Total Results sheet shows the total contribution
of the production. The Detailed Results sheet presents results broken down by the stage in the production
system.
We used an attributional LCA and mass functional units were selected: 1 tonne of classic loose tomatoes
for the tomato crops and 1000 stems for the rose crop. The system boundary was from raw material extraction
to farm gate, including waste material disposal. The production system was structured in stages to facilitate
calculations and the interpretation of results: greenhouse structure, auxiliary equipment, climate control
system, fertilisers, pesticides and waste management (Figure 1). The processes considered for the environmental
analysis included inputs and outputs in the manufacture of greenhouse components, transport of materials,
material disposal and greenhouse management, i.e. water, fertilisers, pesticides, electricity consumption
and energy consumption in the case of heating (Torrellas et al., 2012). For this simplified LCA and following
the cut-off criteria of the ILCD Handbook (ILCD, 2010), processes with an environmental impact
below 5% were omitted when they were considered not relevant to an agricultural production system. The
amount of materials in the structure was calculated using formulas developed from a reference production
system inventory.
Figure 1. Production system diagram, including stages and processes for a tomato crop in: (1a) a multi-tunnel
greenhouse in European Southern climate conditions; (1b) a Venlo glasshouse in European Central climate
conditions.
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