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
5. Conclusion
Fresh water scarcity is a central issue debated at international levels. It affects a growing number of people
and companies worldwide. To support the definition of strategies to better manage water resources the
concept and the methodology of Water Footprint has been introduced.
Food and agriculture are recognized to be water intensive sectors. Therefore many studies have been published
to determine the water footprint of many food products. Most of these studies adopt life cycle perspective
in the definition of processes to be considered in the water footprint quantification, but consider ancillary
materials and processes (such as energy use or transportation) to be non-significant.
In this study, conducted in 2011, a water footprint of a 330g organic strawberry jam is conducted. The
method used is the one presented by the Water Footprint Network. The objectives of the study were:
to compare the water footprint accounting of organic and non-organic strawberry farming in cultivated
a site in Bulgaria;
to assess the product water footprint of the 330g strawberry jam and to determine the contribution
of ancillary materials and processes (overheads). Primary data were collected from the Italian
Food company and its suppliers.
Characterisation was performed using WSI.
In this case study, results showed that organic strawberry farming has higher water use than non-organic
strawberry farming. The main reason is the different yield of the two farming method.
The water footprint of the 330g organic strawberry jam resulted to be 88.4 l. Other studies confirm that
farming is the process with higher water footprint. Overheads water footprint contribution resulted to be over
10%. The Italian Food company should work mainly on paper based packaging to reduce the water footprint
of overheads. These results suggest that even ancillary materials and processes should be considered when
looking at strategies to reduce a product water footprint.
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