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

PARALLEL SESSION 3C: SHEEP AND DAIRY PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
supplied additional information on farm practices for all provinces. When no specific site data were available,
or the contribution to impact was known to be minimal, life cycle inventory databases were used,
mainly ecoinvent 2.2 (SCLCI, 2010). In the last resort, when assumptions were necessary because activity
data were not available, expert judgements were used for validation. Models based on ecoinvent are summarised
below, with adaptation described where relevant.
2.2. Life Cycle Inventory Assessment
The global framework adopted in this study (Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable.) is based on the
peer-reviewed and internationally recognised LCIA method IMPACT 2002+ (Jolliet et al., 2003, updated by
Humbert et al., 2011) with several novelties inspired by the work done for the development of IMPACT
World+, including consistent spatially explicit levels and improved impact category modelling. Eighteen
impact categories are included in this study. While they can be reported and interpreted separately, they can
be modelled up to the five damage indicators: Climate Change, Natural Resources, Human Health, Ecosystem
Quality and Water footprint, allowing their respective contribution to be put into perspective. IMPACT
2002+ grouping methodology was used to aggregate the midpoint indicators.
Figure 1. The LCIA framework used (regionalised impact categories in bold)
2.3. Regionalisation
Nine of the 18 impact categories were regionalised (bold, Fig. 1). Having a specific geographic context,
this study considers a multi-scale spatially explicit life cycle approach for both inventory and impact assessment
levels. Indeed, Canada is divided into distinct regions showing differences in land covers, vegetation
patterns, climate and hydrological systems, and soil types. Spatial differentiation is important when quantifying
the environmental footprint at each life cycle stage of Canadian milk production for regional impacts
(e.g., acidification, eutrophication, smog) and local impacts (e.g., ecotoxicity). However, potential impacts at
the global level (e.g., ozone depletion, global warming) are not affected by an emission’s location.
Moreover, to perform regionalised assessment that accounts for spatial differentiation, impact indicators
that address environmental problems in the agricultural sector and are highly sensitive to regional characteristics
were included: water use, land use, acidification, eutrophication, toxicity and ecotoxicity. The framework
used in this study and the methods underlying these regional-specific impact indicators are based on
the IMPACT World+ LCIA method (CIRAIG et al., 2012).
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