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PARALLEL SESSION 2A: LAND USE 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Parallel session 2a: Land Use
128
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Application of new UNEP/SETAC life cycle initiative methods for
land use impact assessment. Land use impacts of margarine
Llorenç Milà i Canals * , Giles Rigarlsford, Sarah Sim
Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, Unilever R&D, Colworth Science Park, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, MK44 1LQ, UK
Corresponding author. E-mail: Llorenc.Mila-i-Canals@Unilever.com
ABSTRACT
New characterisation factors (CF) for land use and land use change (LUC) impacts relating to biodiversity and ecosystem services
developed recently within the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle initiative have been applied to a case study of margarine (Milà i Canals et
al., 2012). The new land use impact assessment methods applied help to identify hotspots in the life cycle of margarines, with different
proportions and sources of vegetable oils. The specific impacts of each vegetable oil are determined mainly by the yield (land
occupation), but also by the type of agriculture (annual vs. permanent crops) and the sourcing location (sensitivity of biomes and
occurrence of land use change). Outstanding key challenges to assess land use impacts in LCA include the quantification of LUC and
its allocation to specific crops / products; determination of sourcing regions for globalised supply chains; and the choice of reference
situation to assess land use impacts.
Keywords: land use impacts, margarine, Life Cycle Impact Assessment, biodiversity, ecosystem services
1. Introduction
New characterisation factors (CF) for the impacts from land use (LU, also called occupation) and land use
change (LUC, also called transformation) on biodiversity and ecosystem services have recently been published
under the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle initiative (Koellner et al., 2012a); this paper assesses the application
of these new CFs to LU- and LUC-related impact categories in a case study of margarine (Milà i Canals
et al., 2012). The specific goals of the case study are to describe and estimate the size of the environmental
impacts associated with the cradle-to-gate production of margarine and to understand the ease of use of the
new CF. This case study uses as its basis a recently published study on margarine (Nilsson et al., 2010).
2. Methods
The methodological approach in this case study is a descriptive (attributional) LCA (Nilsson et al., 2010).
The functional unit of the study is 500g of packaged margarine used as a spread in the UK and Germany
representing a low fat and high fat content margarine product respectively. Further description of how the
occupation flows were quantified is provided in Milà i Canals et al., (2012), as well as the adaptation of land
use flows in the background databases. The quantification of land transformation flows in the relevant countries
for the main crops used in the margarine recipes is further explained in section 2.1 below. The land occupation
and transformation flows identified were then characterised with the characterisation factors (CF)
recommended by the Life Cycle Initiative project, as follows:
For the Biodiversity Damage Potential (BDP) the approach and CF offered by de Baan et al., (2012)
were used. Average world CF were used for those biomes not covered in de Baan et al., (2012).
For Climate Regulation Potential (CRP), the approach suggested by Müller-Wenk and Brandão
(2010) was used.
For Biotic Production Potential (BPP), the approach and CF offered by Brandão and Milà i Canals
(2012) were used.
For impacts on Ecosystem Services, other than CRP and BPP, the approach and CF proposed by
Saad et al., (2012) were used. These include impacts on: Freshwater Regulation Potential (FWRP);
Erosion Regulation Potential (ERP); and Water Purification Potential (WPP) assessed here by two
indicators related to Physico-Chemical Filtration (WPP-PCF) and Mechanical Filtration (WPP-MF).
The results on FWRP and ERP are not discussed in this paper.
Specific assumptions in the application of each impact category are discussed in Milà i Canals et al.,
(2012).
2.1. Land transformation linked to agricultural stages
As shown in Figure 1, a three step approach was used to determine whether a crop grown in a specific
country was potentially related to any land transformation (LUC) in that country, and what transformations
were involved if any. A 20 year time period was considered as this is often recommended for the allocation
of impacts of land use change (see e.g. Koellner et al., 2012a; Flynn et al., 2012). Because in this case the