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

PARALLEL SESSION 1A: WATER FOOTPRINT 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Water footprint accounting of organic and non-organic strawberries
including ancillary materials: a case study
Manzardo Alessandro * , Anna Mazzi, Monia Niero, Sara Toniolo, Antonio Scipioni
CESQA (Quality and Environmental Research Centre), University of Padova, Department of Industrial Engineering, Via Marzolo 9,
35131 Padova, Italy
Corresponding author. E-mail: alessandro.manzardo@unipd.it
ABSTRACT
Fresh water scarcity has become a main issue debated at international level. In order to support a better management and use of water,
the methodology of Water Footprint has been developed. In this paper the Water Footprint of a 330g Strawberry Jam produced
within Europe and sold in Italy is presented. The objectives of the research were: 1) to compare the Water Footprint accounting of
two different strawberries farming (organic and non-organic); 2) to determine whether the contribution of the ancillary materials and
processes to the overall product water footprint was significant. The water footprint accounting of organic farming resulted to be
bigger than the non-organic one. Moreover ancillary materials and processes resulted responsible for over the 10% of the overall
product water footprint. Therefore, to support the choices and decisions in the field of water resources management, it is important to
consider also ancillary materials and processes.
Keywords: Water Footprint accounting, Organic Food, Strawberry
1. Introduction
Climate Changes, world population growth and economic development heavily affected accessibility to
freshwater resources in the last decades (UNESCO, 2006; Rockström, 2009). The public interest and concerns
on this issue has constantly grown in the recent year so that freshwater scarcity has been debated at
local, national and international level (Bates et al., 2008; UNEP, 2011): United Nations included water availability
and water access in the “The Millennium Development Goals” (UN, 2010) the European Union is
working on a new water policy that will be published within 2012 named “Blueprint to Safeguard Europe's
Water Resources” (EU, 2012); moreover a growing number of companies want to be aware of the environmental
impacts of their choices, including water use (Ercin et al., 2012; Chapagain and Orr, 2010).
To support the definition of strategies to better manage these resources, the concept and assessment
methodology of Water Footprint accounting has been introduced as an indicator of freshwater use (Hoekstra,
2003; Hoekstra et al., 2011).
Latest developments of this methodology are focused on water use impact assessment of products and organisations
within the framework of a more comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (ISO 2006, ISO
2011).
Many studies on food and agricultural products have been published accounting water footprint indicator
but only a few include ancillary materials and processes (overheads), such as packaging, transports, energy
etc. although these are usually considered in LCA studies (Ridoutt et al., 2009, Mila I canals et al., 2010;
Ercin et al., 2012; Chapagain and Orr, 2010). These materials and processes have usually non-relevant contribution
to the overall Water Footprint accounting of a product (Ercin et al., 2012; Ridoutt et al., 2009, Mila
I canals et al., 2010; Ercin et al., 2012; Chapagain and Orr, 2010).
In this study, conducted in 2011, a water footprint of a jar of 330g organic Strawberry Jam produced
within Europe and sold in Italy by a food Italian company is presented. The objectives of the research were:
1) to compare the water footprint accounting of organic and non-organic strawberry farming;
2) to determine if the contribution of the ancillary materials and processes (overheads) to the overall
product water footprint can be significant.
2. Methods
To achieve the objectives of the research the methodology presented by the Water Footprint Network has
been used (Hoekstra et al., 2011) adopting a life cycle approach.
This study is structured in the following steps: 1) goals and scope of the study; 2) water footprint accounting
of the organic and traditional strawberry farming; 3) water footprint of the 330g organic Strawberry Jam.
The blue, green and grey water footprint of the processes and product under study were assessed. The water
footprint accounting of the organic farming was used as basic building block to determine the final product
water footprint.
A life cycle approach was adopted to determine the boundaries of the study in order to include the ancillary
materials and processes. Results at product level have also been characterised using Water Stress Index
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