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

PARALLEL SESSION 7C: FOOD CHAIN AND FOOD WASTE 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
eutrophication, acidification and photochemical oxidation. In addition agricultural land occupancy was reported
in units of m 2 .yr. (the result obtained by simply adding all land occupation of all classes in the inventory),
as were the unweighted water footprint (to the method described by Hoeskstra and Chapagain, (2008);
weighted water footprint (using a method very similar to that outlined by Ridoutt and Pfister (2009) whereby
a water stress characterisation factor for producing locations was introduced through the use of a water stress
index (WSI, Pfister et al., 2009) to “weight” the water use according to the degree of water stress at the place
of use) and environmental impact quotient (EIQ, Kovach et al., 1992) of pesticides used.
3. Results
The impact assessment results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. LCIA results, raspberries in the UK at different times of year.
Product System
Impact Category
A. Raspberries,
fresh at UK RDC in
May
B. Raspberries fresh
at UK RDC in July
C. Raspberries frozen
at UK RDC in November
GWP100 (kg CO2 eq) 7.3 7.4 7.7
Water footprint (WF) (m 3 Virtual water) 2.7 1.3 1.3
Weighted WF (m 3 Virtual water) 2.7 0.09 0.09
Agricultural land occupation (m 2 .yr) 1.5 1.6 1.6
Pesticide hazard indicator E.I.Q. 0.3 0.3 0.3
Abiotic depletion (kg antimony eq.) 0.01 0.004 0.006
Photochemical oxidation - high NOx (kg
ethylene eq.)
0.0004 0.0001 0.0002
Acidification - (kg SO2 eq.) 0.01 0.003 0.004
Eutrophication (kg PO4--- eq.) 0.005 0.004 0.004
Sensitivity analysis was undertaken to assess the effect on the LCIA results of raspberry cane yield (no.
Per ha) for case A and of cold-store operating parameters for case C. Selected results are shown in Table 2
(below). Results for impact categories driven strongly by horticultural process parameters (for example, land
occupation, GWP) are, as expected, highly sensitive to product yield. Categories to which transport process
emissions contribute more (notably acidification) are of course less sensitive to this factor. Sensitivity to
other parameters was found to be weaker than to those included in the Table. For cold storage, small variations
in energy consumption per unit volume are less significant influences on overall LCA results than the
nature of the refrigerant used and assumed loss rates for the more environmentally-significant refrigerants.
4. Discussion
The differences between the LCIA results for the three cases of raspberry supply are not large, except for the
water footprint measures. The fact that both canes and fruit are subject to long-distance refrigerated transport
is a significant factor behind the higher acidification and abiotic depletion values obtained for raspberries
delivered fresh in May (A); for example product transport accounts for 35% of the acidification potential for
A but 18% of the acidification potential for B. The close similarity between the EIQ values obtained partly
results from the use of expert consultation to fill data gaps; results obtained for strawberries within the same
project (for which the pesticide use data was of higher quality) suggest that differences in soil sterilant applications
rates and frequencies can have a significant influence on this indicator.
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