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

PARALLEL SESSION 7B: BEEF PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Table 4. Estimated impacts for the entire EU-27 of current meat production practices and reduction achieved
by using cultured meat technology with and without taking into account land use and land use change (LU-
LUC) emissions (the former includes opportunity costs of land use).
Current Cultured Reduction
Impact Unit
meat meat quantity %
GHG without LULUC 1000 t CO2-eq 301570 3669 297900 99
GHG with LULUC
Water use
1000 t CO2-eq
1000 m
434565 -2183663 2618200 603
3 164250 10060 154200 94
Land use km 2 1650000 4474 1645500 100
Table 5. Land use, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and water use of plant, livestock and meat
substitute products per functional unit of mass, protein, or energy in the product.
per edible (t) per protein (t) per energy unit (TJ)
Land Energy GHG Water Land Energy GHG Water Land Energy GHG Water
Product ha TJ t CO2-eq 1000m 3 ha TJ t CO2-eq 1000m 3 ha TJ t CO2-eq 1000m 3
wheat 0.14 2.5 0.8 3.6 1.1 19 6 28.2 11 0.2 62 27.6
soybean 0.42 3.0 1.3 2.2 1.2 8 4 6.1 27 0.2 84 140.9
maize 0.14 2.4 0.7 1.4 1.1 19 5 10.8 10 0.2 44 92.8
field bean 0.30 2.0 1.0 3.0 1.4 9 5 13.6 22 0.1 74 219.5
spirulina 0.02 10.1 0.8 0.5 0.0 16 1 0.7 2 0.7 54 29.3
beef 4.34 52.5 29.8 11.8 19.3 233 132 99.2 679 8.2 4665 3491.6
pork 0.99 22.3 8.5 4.9 4.5 102 39 29.8 108 2.4 928 711.1
sheep 2.91 48.7 36.9 8.3 14.5 243 184 87.9 297 5.0 3766 1796.3
poultry 0.94 17.6 6.7 3.8 4.2 79 30 25.2 103 1.9 733 612.5
salmon - 25.4 1.8 - - 151 11 - - 3.7 260 -
eggs 0.55 11.8 4.6 3.4 4.4 94 37 30.1 105 2.2 878 716.4
milk 0.12 2.5 1.1 1.1 3.7 79 33 33.6 45 1.0 400 406.0
cheese 0.72 20.0 8.8 5.2 2.8 78 34 20.2 42 1.2 510 299.0
quorn 0.17 38.0 2.3 - 1.0 233 14 - 38 8.5 514 -
tofu 0.30 15.6 2.0 - 3.8 200 26 - 86 4.5 575 -
cultured
meat
0.02 31.7 1.9 0.5 0.1 166 10 2.7 5 7.1 423 116.5
4. Discussion
Many technological and social issues have to be resolved before cultured meat can contribute to the reduction
of environmental impacts of food production in the EU. Currently, only small quantities of cultured
meat have been produced in research laboratories, and more research is required before the production can be
scaled up to commercial levels. The main challenges for scaling up the production include development of
growth media, optimising the production conditions and making the whole process financially feasible.
As the technology for producing cultured meat in large-scale production plants is currently not well defined,
there are many uncertainties about the data of the environmental impacts of cultured meat production
presented in this paper. An uncertainty analysis of the environmental impacts of cultured meat production is
presented in Tuomisto et al., (2011). More information about the commercial scale cultured meat production
system will assist with generating more accurate environmental impact estimates. This study did not take
into account the production of scaffolds on which the cells are cultivated. These scaffolds could be made of
edible materials or alternatively the cells could be harvested on the surface of the scaffolds. Furthermore, this
study did not consider the production of fat cells, and the mechanical and/or electric stretching that would be
required for exercising the muscle cells.
Nonetheless, cultured meat would provide substantial environmental benefits, as its land use, GHG emission
and water use impacts are only a fraction of those of conventionally produced meat. In particular, when
opportunity costs of land use are taken into account, cultured meat could help reduce most environmental
impacts of livestock production if the land released from livestock production were used for providing environmental
services. However, it has to be noted that the analysis presented in this paper did not take into
account the fact that if majority of meat was produced by using cultured meat technology, the co-products of
meat production, such as leather and wool, should be produced by alternative ways.
Cultured meat production could also have potential benefits for wildlife conservation for two main reasons:
i) it reduces pressure for converting natural habitats to agricultural land, and ii) it provides an alternative
way of producing meat from endangered and rare species that are currently over-hunted or –fished for
618