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

GROUP 1, SESSION A: ANIMAL PRODUCTION SYSTEMS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
34. LCA of Finnish rainbow trout, results and significance on different
allocation methods
Frans Silvenius 1,* , Juha Grönroos 2 , Hanna Hartikainen 1, , Sirpa Kurppa 1, , Markus Kankainen 3 , Timo
Mäkinen 3 , Raija Tahvonen 1, , Jouni Vielma 3
1 MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Responsible Food Chain – Better Consumer Well-being, FI 00790 Helsinki,
Finland 2 Finnish Environment Institute, P. O. Box 140, FI-00251 Helsinki, Finland 3 Finnish Game
and Fisheries Research Insitute, P.O. Box 2, FI-00791 Helsinki, Finland, Corresponding author. E-mail:
frans.silvenius@mtt.fi
An LCA of Finnish rainbow trout was conducted in 2010-2012 by MTT Agrifood Research Finland, Finnish
Game and Research Insitute and Finnish Environment Institute. The functional unit of the study was one ton
rainbow trout fillet at the gate of the fish processing plant. The system boundaries included product chain of
feed raw materials, feed production, hatchery, fish farming plants, fish processing, packages and transports.
The impact classes studied were climate change, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone formation
and primary energy use.
One important part of the study was to make comparison to the previous LCA study of rainbow trout (Seppälä
et al. 2001, Silvenius and Grönroos 2003, Grönroos et al. 2006). Because of the development of feed
and more effective feeding of the fish, the environmental impacts of the rainbow trout product chain have
reduced over 20%. The carbon footprint of the rainbow trout in this study was about 4300 kg CO2/t of fillet
(Fig. 1)and eutrophication impact 38 kgPO4-eq/t of fillet.
Allocation is one of the most biggest challenges related to LCA-investigations. In our study, the effects of
different allocation methods to the results was studied. There have been some earlier studies concerning effects
of the allocation on the results of fish products LCAs (e.g. Winther et al. 2009, Svanes et al. 2011). In
our study, allocations based on different existing LCA standards were compared (Table 1). The allocation
situations studied were allocation between captured fish species used as raw materials for the fish meal and
oil, allocation between fish meal and oil, allocation between soy meal and oil, rapeseed meal and oil and
allocation between fillet and by-products of slaughtering and filleting. Additionally, scenarios for the possible
utilisation of the by-products were made.
The chosen allocation method had high effects on the final results. The mass allocation between fish fillet
and by-products of the slaughtering and filleting resulted in lowest figures for environmental impacts. However,
when using mass allocation for fish meal and oil raw material fishing, and mass allocation between soy
meal and soy oil the estimated environmental impacts were highest.
References
Grönroos, J., Seppälä, J., Silvenius, F. & Mäkinen T., 2006. Life-cycle assessment of Finnish cultivated
rainbow trout. Boreal Environment Research 11:401-404.
Hartikainen, H. 2011. Allokointimenettelyt elintarvikkeiden elinkaariarvioinneissa. Helsingin yliopisto, Taloustieteen
laitos, Ympäristöekonomia, Pro gradu–tutkielma, Marraskuu 2011.
Seppälä, J., Silvenius, F., Grönroos, J., Mäkinen, T., Silvo, K. & Storhammar, E. 2001. Kirjolohen tuotanto
ja ympäristö. Suomen ympäristö 529. 164 pp.
Silvenius, F. & Grönroos, J. 2003 Fish farming and the environment. Results of inventory analysis. Suomen
ympäristökeskuksen moniste 276, 71 pp.
Svanes, E., Vold, M & Hanssen, O., J. 2011. Effect of different allocation methods on LCA results of products
from wild-caught fish and on the use of such results. Int J Life Cycle Assess 16:512-521.
Winther, U., Ziegler, F., Hognes, E., Emanuelsson, A., Sund, V. & Ellingsen, H. 2009. Carbon footprint and
energy use of Norwegian seafood products. SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture, Norway.
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