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
Table 4. Emergy flows and UEVs for conventional and organic oil productions. Square bracket=references
for UEV; Type of input: R= local renewable resources, N= local non-renewable resources, F= non-local
purchased inputs.
Emergy Fluxes (sej/ha/yr)
Input Units Quantity/yr (CO) Quantity/yr (OO) Ref. UEV TYPE OF INPUT CONVENTIONAL OIL (CO) ORGANIC OIL (OO)
LOCAL RESOURCES
sunlight J 5,25E+13 5,25E+13 [1] R 5,25E+13 5,25E+13
rain g 7,90E+09 7,90E+09 [2] R 6,64E+14 6,64E+14
geothermal heat J 3,15E+10 3,06E+10 [2] R 2,19E+14 2,13E+14
loss of topsoil J 2,77E+09 2,77E+09 [3] N 2,00E+14 2,00E+14
PHASE 1
diesel J 3,07E+09 3,74E+10 [5] F 2,02E+14 2,46E+15
fertilizer g 3,80E+05 7,40E+02 [3] F 6,23E+15 1,75E+13
machinery g 5,23E+04 8,85E+04 [7] F 3,43E+14 5,81E+14
water g 1,65E+08 1,27E+08 [8] F 2,89E+14 2,22E+14
plastc, tyre g 2,43E+04 8,97E+04 [9] F 6,59E+13 2,43E+14
pesticides g 9,17E+05 2,00E+04 [3] F 1,33E+16 2,90E+14
electricity J 8,25E+09 6,00E+09 [4] F 9,81E+14 7,13E+14
PHASE 2
machinery g 1,54E+04 3,00E+04 [7] F 8,98E+13 1,91E+14
diesel J 4,78E+08 4,78E+08 [5] F 3,14E+13 3,14E+13
water g 2,27E+06 1,18E+06 [8] F 3,97E+12 2,07E+12
electricity J 9,35E+08 4,84E+08 [4] F 1,11E+14 5,75E+13
plastc, tyre g 4,88E+03 2,38E+04 [9] F 1,32E+13 6,45E+13
glass g 6,53E+05 3,37E+05 [10] F 2,02E+15 1,04E+15
HUMAN LABOUR h 8,50E+01 7,95E+02 [6] 10%R 90%F 2,51E+14 2,35E+15
TOTAL 2,50E+16 9,35E+15
OIL (sej/g) g 4,83E+05 2,50E+05 5,18E+10 3,74E+10
OIL (sej/BOTTLE OF OIL) 5,18E+13 3,74E+13
4. Discussion
4.1 LCA-EME of wine productions
Literature references for UEV
[1] Odum H.T., 1996.
[2] Odum H.T.,et al. 2000.
[3] Brandt-Williams S. L., 2002.
[4] Tiezzi E. et al., 2001.
[5] Bastianoni S. et al., 2009
[6] Pulselli, R.M., et al., 2008.
[7] Brown M.T., Bardi E., 2001.
[8] Pulselli F. M.,et al., 2011.
[9] Campbell D.E. et al. 2002.
[10] Buranakarn, V. 1998.
[11] Tilley, D.R., 1999.
[12] Pulselli, R.M., et al., 2007.
In wine productions, the packaging phase (phase 3) presents major impacts both for the production systems
analysed, due to the use of glass. Impact values related to CW are higher than those of the OW (Table
1) principally because the conventional system considered in this work used heavy and non-recycled glass.
In contrast, the organic farm, thanks to the use of a lighter type of glass for bottles, as imposed by the European
guidelines for organic productions, can reduce impacts related to this phase. These results are in accordance
with Kavargiris et al., (2009) on the organic vs. conventional wine. Inputs linked to phase 1 and 2 are
higher in the organic farm. CW uses chemical pesticides, effective at lower doses but with higher impact
values. On the contrary, OW uses conventional sulphur and copper based pesticides, which are less effective
and have to be used in higher quantities. Moreover, the CW in this study uses modern machineries, while in
the OW case most of the work is done by hand, but the mechanisation, even if highly reduced, is quite old
and less efficient.
EME results highlight highest values for OW’s total eMergy flow, while CW presents highest value of
UEV (Table 2). It means that CW has much larger intensive use of resources per bottle of product. This difference
is due to the lower wine productivity of CW because of the rigorous selection of grapes. OW utilises
more resources than CW: less efficient machineries, non-synthetic chemicals and all what concerns storage
and bottling phase (more materials are necessary to have a higher quantity of wine). Furthermore, the total
eMergy flow is higher for the organic production principally due to the higher annual human labour and consumption
of diesel per hectare. Results related to eMergy flows grouped into macro-categories (Fig. 1) highlight
how inputs are split and their weight on total eMergy flow (see the caption of Fig.1 for characteristics
of each group). The category “other materials” (materials for the bottling phase) represents the highest percent
of total eMergy flow for CW and OW respectively. While CW presents “chemical and fertilisers” as the
second higher macro-category, OW presents energy contributions (diesel and electricity consumption). The
slightly higher value of “human labour” in OW is because most of the work is done by hand. “Natural resources”
represent less than 1% of total flows for both the two farms (not shown in the figure below).
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