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
2.4. Impact categories
A customised version of ReCiPe (hierarchic endpoint) method is used in the assessment of the environmental
impact of the various product types. The impact categories of the ReCiPe method have been clustered
into four main categories, in order to make them more understandable for consumers:
Biodiversity: The effects of environmental damage on biodiversity and ecosystems, measured in
species.yr or PDF (potentially disappearing fraction). These include the impact on the biodiversity in
ecosystems due to: terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, terrestrial ecotoxicity, freshwater
ecotoxicity, marine ecotoxicity, effects of climate change on ecosystems, agricultural land occupation,
urban land occupation, natural land transformation.
Human Health: The effects of environmental damage on human health are measured in DALY (disability-adjusted
life years) and are measured as endpoints. The following midpoint impact categories
are included: ozone depletion, human toxicity, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter
formation, ionising radiation;, effects of climate change on human health.
Climate Change: Climate change is measured in terms of kg CO2-eq and includes the following categories:
climate change (process), climate change, land transformation.
Land Use: Land use, measured in m 2 , takes into consideration the physical space that is occupied by
a given system. It includes the follow categories: agricultural land occupation, urban land occupation.
This category was not used in the Superwijzer, but was used as a separate indicator during the
research.
In the Superwijzer App the impact of the product is presented in four categories that mainly overlap the categories
mentioned above: Biodiversity, Climate change, Harmful substances (combination of the Human
health assessment by CE Delft and an internal review by Pigs in Need concerning e.g. use of antibiotics) and
Animal welfare (assessed by Science for Society). The App-user is free to weight the categories according to
their own interest (a default is automatically included).
3. Results
The results show that there are large differences between the product groups, but also within product
groups. The differences in livestock management, feed, feed conversion and greenhouse gas production by
ruminants are the main causes for the differences in the categories biodiversity, climate change and land use
impacts. Human health impacts differ, relative to the volatisation of N-compounds from fertilisers, the
amount of stable emissions occurring and the emissions from transport.
The most significant results of the environmental assessment of the 98 products are shown in
589