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

PARALLEL SESSION 6B: FISHIERIES, SOIL, AND EMERGY METHODS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Finally, species analysis has also seen proliferation in recent years, since small pelagic fish, such as
mackerel or pilchard (Ramos et al., 2011a; Vázquez-Rowe et al., 2010b), crustaceans, such as shrimps or
lobster (Ziegler and Valentinsson, 2008; Ziegler et al., 2011), cephalopods (Vázquez-Rowe et al., 2012a) or
gadoids other than cod, such as hake or pollock (Sund, 2009; Vázquez-Rowe et al., 2011), have been evaluated
using LCA methodology.
3.2. Seafood processing
There is a limited number of research articles linked to this phase of the life cycle of seafood products.
Moreover, the degree of complexity of final products, as consumed in households can be very varied. Consequently,
based on these two issues, available studies can be still considered pioneering projects. In the first
place, fresh fish consumption supply chains have been assessed by Vázquez-Rowe et al., (2011), showing the
low relative impacts of the on land phases. Secondly, frozen seafood products were initially examined for
Danish seafood products (cod, shrimps…), but recent studies also include analysis of frozen cod in Scandinavian
countries and Canada (Fulton, 2010; Ziegler et al., 2003) and frozen cephalopods (Vázquez-Rowe et
al., 2012a). Thirdly, the canning industry linked to the seafood sector has been assessed by Hospido et al.,
(2006), which highlighted the high energy demand of the canning factory, as well as the elevated environmental
burdens linked to tinplate transport and production. Finally, the elaboration of complex multiingredient
breaded seafood products has been assessed by Thrane (2004) and Fikseaunet (2007). These two
studies noted the importance of catching low energy-intensive fish and on optimizing the fish content of
these products in order to lower their environmental burdens.
3.3. Food meal LCAs
Despite of the reduced number of seafood LCA studies currently available in the literature, a set of publications
dealing with the environmental impacts of diets and meals have recently included seafood products
arriving from capture fisheries. In the first place, Muñoz et al., (2010), when analysing the environmental
profile of the average Spanish diet, included available seafood products that were at the time in the literature.
Nilsson and Sonesson (2010), in a study of similar characteristics for the Swedish diet, detected that 0.17
million tonnes of CO2eq./year would be avoided if Swedes were to consume 14% fish, that is, the recommended
annual amount. Finally, other studies, such as Zufía and Arana (2008) and Espinosa-Orias and Azapagic
(2010) performed specific environmental impact studies of different specific meals.
3.4. Carbon footprinting
The use of CF methodology in fisheries LCA was developed initially by Winther et al., (2009), through
the analysis of 14 different iconic Norwegian seafood products that are exported to other nations. Iribarren et
al., (2010; 2011) evaluated the CF of the Galician fishing sector, providing extraction CF values for over 50
commonly landed fish species. While the former used mass allocation to report the results; the Galician study
selected an economic perspective following the PAS2050 specifications. The relevance of these CF studies,
however, must be understood in a wide framework, in which GHG emissions may not constitute the main
environmental burden. Nevertheless, the use of CF as a single indicator to reach consumers and stakeholders
has already been proved in other production sectors. Finally, it is important to highlight the fact that certain
fishery management decisions have been proved to cause important changes in terms of GHG emissions in
fisheries (Driscoll and Tyedmers, 2010).
4. Key methodological issues in fisheries LCAs
An overwhelming majority of the evaluated publications assume the general ISO guidelines to compute
LCA in fisheries and food products (ISO, 2006). Nevertheless, important differences regarding the LCA
approach can be seen depending on the nature of the analysed fisheries or the consumption of seafood trends
between nations.
4.1. Methodological assumptions in LCA
A wide range of variance can be seen when assessing fishery and seafood case studies, depending on the
assumptions that are taken into consideration:
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