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

GROUP 2, SESSION A: CARBON OR WATER FOOTPRINTS, SOIL, BIODIVERSITY 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
714
41. Displaying environmental footprints of agricultural products: a
“biodiversity” indicator based on landscape features
Antonin Vergez * , Martin Bortzmeyer
Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, CGDD, * Corresponding author. E-mail: antonin.vergez@developpement-durable.gouv.fr
Sustainable household consumption can be an important engine for a greener economic growth. Introducing
information about the environmental impacts of products throughout their life cycle is one way to make the
global consumption system more sustainable. In France, the “Grenelle” environmental laws introduce the
right for consumers to have information related to the multi-criteria environmental footprint of (mass market)
products at the point of sale. A year-long experiment began in July 2011 involving around 160 volunteer
companies and other relevant economic stakeholders. Because the agricultural and food sectors are concerned,
it is expected that providing consumers with this environmental information could have a positive
effect and lead the whole food chain, from farmers to retailers, to produce and market more sustainable
goods.
This legislative pillar of the French system relies on the technical ADEME AFNOR platform (expertise and
standardisation) building methodological documents with all concerned stakeholders. In the food, beverage
and pet-food sector, the transversal methodological document finalised in April 2012 by the platform recommends
using 100 mg or 100 ml as a functional unit and addressing the following environmental impact
indicators, units (and degrees of precision) and calculation methods: greenhouse gas emissions (in kg eqCO2,
using IPCC 2007), water consumption (litres, using net consumption), water eutrophication (in g EqN, using
ReCiPe), water ecotoxicity (CTUe, using USEtox), and impacts on biodiversity (but do not recommend any
unit or method for this issue: it has to be defined).
The French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy (MEDDE CGDD) decided to finance
a study to propose such a product-level biodiversity indicator because i) a multi-criteria environmental footprint
is more representative, ii) stakeholders of the ADEME AFNOR platform have identified biodiversity as
an environmental challenge to address, iii) agriculture’s contribution to both loss and preservation or improvement
of biodiversity is important in the world and in France, and iv) existing LCA methods to address
biodiversity impacts of food and agricultural products are unsatisfactory: based on land “occupation” or
“consumption”, they associate higher impacts with more extensive farming practices. The poster presents the
main characteristics of this study, which will end in autumn 2012.
A call for tenders specified the type of biodiversity indicator to build. It i) has to express not only loss or
impacts but also a positive contribution to biodiversity; ii) could be specific to the farm level, since major
biodiversity impacts of food products are concentrated in the agricultural production phase; iii) has to be
calculated as a ratio dividing a quantity of biodiversity by a quantity of product; and iv) has to be consistent
with biodiversity indicators already used in existing agricultural policies (CAP good agricultural and environmental
conditions, CAP second pillar subsidies for grasslands and French farm environmental certification
scheme). Two companies, Solagro (an agro-environmental consultancy firm) and ACTA (French agricultural
technical institutes), were selected to perform.
Consequently, “landscape features”, which are “semi-natural, unfarmed or extensively farmed environments”,
were the proxy chosen to characterise biodiversity. Examples in the database cover extensive permanent
grasslands and temporary grasslands with low nitrogen inputs, hedges, ponds, ditches, trees in a line
or in a group, isolated trees, field margins and terraces, land left fallow, buffer strips, etc.
The year-long study is divided into 3 phases: i) stabilise methodology and definitions and start data collection
(3 months); ii) calculate values of the biodiversity indicator for the selected agricultural products (6
months); and iii) discuss the results and properties of the indicator (3 months). Selected animal products are
cow milk, cow meat (dairy or beef cattle), sheep meat, sheep milk, lamb meat, pig meat, chicken meat,
chicken eggs. Selected plant products are wheat, barley, maize, sunflower, rapeseed, potatoes, protein crops,
orchards, vineyard, sugarbeets, grapes, apples, tomatoes, vegetables, and fodder (silage maize, permanent
and temporary grasslands, fallows).
Three different approaches are used to calculate this indicator: i) national statistical databases (National Forestry
Inventory 2nd cycle, TERUTI-Lucas, National Agricultural Survey 2000), ii) representative farms for
typical production systems (database of agricultural institutes) and iii) the farm database DIALECTE (containing
around 2000 extensive agricultural units). “Landscape features” are measured at different levels depending
on the database, for example, at the commune level (in the national database) or at the farm