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
(a) CONVENTIONAL WINE (CW)
other
materials
61%
Figure 1. Emergy flows of conventional (a) and organic (b) wine production grouped for macro-categories:
chemicals and fertilisers= pesticides, fertilisers and chemicals for fermentation; human labour; natural resources=
rain and geo-heat; loss of topsoil; energy= diesel and electricity; other materials= glass, cork, paper,
glue; water; machinery= steel, iron, aluminium involved in farm operations, transports and processing.
By summing different type of resources (R, N and F) (Table 2), both conventional and organic farms show
the use of 1% renewable resources. Emergy flows are divided in four parts (Table 2). Results highlight highest
values for “phase 3” both in CW (61.11%) and OW (63.13%), followed by “phase 1” (30.70% for CW
and 22.30% for OW), “human labour”, “phase 2” and “local resources”. The “packaging phase” (phase 3)
has bigger relevance because of the higher materials use.
4.2 LCA-EME of olive oil productions
chemicals and
fertilizers
23%
machinery
3%
human labour
6%
energy
7%
Concerning LCA results of the olive oil productions, data demonstrate that the major impacts are associated
to the conventional system (Table 3). Comparing the systems by phases, both productions are characterised
by higher values related to the agricultural phase. In OO, impacts connected to phase 1 are basically due
to the higher fuel consumptions, which depend from old and less efficient machineries, while in CO the use
of chemicals represents the major impact of phase 1. These data agree with literature results derived from
olive oil LCA studies (e.g. Fiore et al., 2009). In the packaging phase the glass is once more the main impact
for both the systems; moreover, in our case studies, all farms use heavy glass bottles. Regarding EME, the
higher environmental performances are explicitly obtained by applying organic practices because of the
lower use of chemicals, which extremely reduces the indirect contribution of solar energy provision (Table
4). While CO presents an intensive use of resources (e.g. fertiliser, pesticides, electricity). The difference
between CO and OO values is reduced in the UEVs because of the less oil yield (productivity) in organic
farm (CO=483 kg/ha/yr vs. OO=250 kg/ha/yr). Fig. 2 shows all eMergy flows grouped into macro-categories
(see the caption of Fig.2 for characteristics of each group). In CO the higher contribution is related to
“chemicals and fertilisers”, followed by “other materials” and “energy”. Other macro-categories have values
lower than 5%. Instead, OO presents a less homogeneous distribution of macro-categories: “energy” and
“human labour” represent main flows, followed by “machinery” and “other materials”. “Natural resources”
consists of 10% of flows, a high percent in respect to CO. It is important to remark that machinery used in
organic farm are aged (and less efficient).
other
materials
machinery 8%
2%
energy
5%
loss of topsoil
1%
natural
resources
4%
human labour
1%
(a) CONVENTIONAL OIL (CO)
water
1%
chemicals and
fertilizers
78%
other
materials
11%
machinery
12%
(b) ORGANIC WINE (OW)
other
materials
63%
Figure 2. Emergy flows of conventional (a) and organic (b) oil production grouped for macro-categories:
chemicals and fertilisers= pesticides and fertilisers; human labour; natural resources= rain and geo-heat; loss
of topsoil; energy= diesel and electricity; other materials= glass; water; machinery= steel, iron, aluminium,
cast iron involved in farm operations, transports and olive processing.
By summing different types of resource (R, N and F) (Table 4), the CO highlights the use of 4% renewable
resources, while OO 12%. By gathering eMergy flows in four parts (Table 4), the agricultural phase
538
water
2%
energy
13%
human
labour
25%
water
2%
chemicals and
fertilizers
9%
machinery
4%
(b) ORGANIC OIL (OO)
energy
35%
chemicals and
fertilizers
3%
human labour
9%
natural
resources
10%
loss of topsoil
2%