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

PARALLEL SESSION 7A: CONSUMERS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
others for better animal welfare, or for more sustainability of the labelled food product. Some labelling
schemes are already in place, e.g. fair trade or organically grown products; others such as climate labels,
labels on animal welfare or labels that show aggregated sustainability or environmental aspects are in place
in few countries, but in most countries they are still under development or ready to push into the market.
3.1 German food labels
In the German food market ten different labels for organically grown products could be found 4 . One of
them is the obligatory EU Label for organic food. Another one is the German ‘Bio-Siegel’ which is with
90% the best known food label in Germany. In contrast, the EU Label for organic food is known only by
14% of German consumers. The other labels belong to the different organically growers associations like
Demeter or Bioland which are the two biggest. These labels are also known by consumers - the better the
bigger the association. However, the information given with the labels is not really clear to most consumers
(Buxel 2010).
According to Eberle (2012) at the end of 2011 four different labels could be found in the German food
market which claimed for less greenhouse gas emissions: one of them is a label of an independent organisation,
which could be obtained only for organically grown food products. Three of them are self-declarations
of companies.
In addition there exists a variety of further food labels. Some belong to independent organisations like
Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) for fish and fish products caught with practices that avoid overfishing;
Fair Trade, for food that is produced following the standards of fair trade along the value chain; or Rainforest
Alliance, for food products from tropical countries e.g. coffee that follows the standards for a more sustainable
coffee cultivation. Some are based on legislation like the label on genetically modified organism (EC
regulations 1829/2003 and 1830/2003) or the national German label “GMO free” (EGGenTDurchfG) (Eberle
2011). Others are company claims like the ProPlanet Label of the REWE Group (Eberle 2012).
3.2 Methodological basis and methodological challenges
Sengstschmid et al., (2011) showed in their study that only single issue labels (e.g. on climate change) are
based on a life cycle approach like the British Carbon Trust’s carbon label. Also in Germany the labels based
on a life cycle approach are single issue labels (Eberle 2011, 2012): Three of the carbon labels on the German
market are based on a life cycle approach (ISO 14040series, PAS 2050/German Memorandum Product
Carbon Footprint (Grießhammer and Hochfeld, 2009), or a comparable self-developed standard (Stop Climate
Change, 2008)); one of them gives no information on the standard on which the calculation of greenhouse
gas emissions and assessment of impacts on climate change is based upon.
Nevertheless various labels which are not based on a life cycle approach cover a broad range of important
environmental impacts with their standards, but do not quantify them nor compare them to the impacts of
similar products, e.g. labels for organically grown products (Sengstschmid et al., 2011). It is state of the art
that at the moment no label for food or meals exists that is based on an assessment of the environmental performance
of the product’s life cycle (Eberle et al., 2011, Sengstschmid et al., 2011). Only the French approach
(Grenelle de l’Environnement, http://www.legrenelle-environnement.fr/) has foreseen that the analysis
of the product’s life cycle will form the basis of the information given by the label.
Sengstschmid et al., (2011) asked stakeholders and consumers which would be the main issues and important
impact categories to be covered by an environmental food label. According to their results the main
environmental issues and important environmental impact categories would be waste and development of
recycling systems, water usage, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, eco-toxicity and pesticide use.
From an expert point of view there are some important issues lacking related to environmental impacts of
food, such as land use, degradation of soils, acidification, quality of water bodies, eutrophication, and impacts
on ecosystems and biodiversity. Others like development of recycling systems have not been ranked in
first priority by experts (e.g. SRU 2002). Having the need to quantify those important issues/impact categories
it could be easily seen that most of them could be quantified best by using life cycle assessment (LCA)
according to ISO 14040 series. In contrast, others are up to date quite difficult to quantify with LCA.
Amongst them is the impact on ecosystems and biodiversity for which different methodological approaches
are in discussion (e.g. Müller-Wenk 1998, Brentrup et al., 2002, Kyläkorpi et al., 2005, Lindner 2008, Milà i
4 http://www.nachhaltigkeitsrat.de/news-nachhaltigkeit/2011/2011-04-21/der-nachhaltige-warenkorb-rne-einkaufsfuehrer-
aktualisiert/?blstr=0
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