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

PARALLEL SESSION 1B: TOWARDS LIFE CYCLE SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Biodiversity
Energy
Consumption
Production
Soil
Emissions
Water
Consumption
Land Use
Ecotoxicity
Potential
Resource
Consumption
International
Community
Future Generations
Farmers/
Employees
Consumers
Local / National
Community
Fixed Costs
(a) Environmental Fingerprint (b) Social Fingerprint (c) Economic Fingerprint
Figure 3. Representation of relative impact category results for alternatives in environmental (a), social (b)
and economic (c) fingerprint diagrams. Relative improvement in each impact category is represented by
smaller values on the respective axes; hence the smaller the fingerprint, the better the relative performance of
the corresponding alternative.
On the other hand, rationalisation drove to a large extent the improved performance on the part of “fixed
costs” (Fig. 3c), which also resulted in a reduced number of working hours within the agriculture industry in
the state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. This reduction in hours worked mainly contributes to the lower
performance in the impact category “local/national community” (Fig 3b). On the part of “Economy”, both
higher commodity prices and higher yields contributed to an improved profitability (and overall economic
sustainability; Fig. 3c). The reason for the higher yields is the market introduction and adoption of openpollinating
varieties as well as of hybrid varieties resulted in a more intensive use of fertilisers and plant protection
compounds. Moreover, in 2008 a larger portion of farmers adopted conservation tillage practices than
in 1998. All these changes caused lower variable and fixed costs per functional unit (Fig 3c).
Scenario analysis was carried out to investigate potential improvements in emission of greenhouse-gases by
changing to a different nitrogen fertiliser, including a de-nitrification inhibitor (i.e. ENTEC ® 26).
1998
2008
Energy
Consumption
ENTEC 2008
Production
Soil
Biodiversity
Water
Consumption
Land Use
Emissions
Ecotoxicity
Potential
Resource
Consumption
Economic
Sustainability
Figure. 4. Environmental fingerprint with scenario ‘ENTEC’, assuming that N-fertilisation is exclusively
done with ENTEC26, containing a denitrification inhibitor
The results of the scenario indicate a significant improvement of the 2008 sustainability performance (Fig.
4). This increase was mainly conferred by improvements in the indicators “greenhouse gas emissions”, and
“water emissions” as well as in “nutrient balance” of the soil. The dimensions “Economy” and “Society”
stayed largely unchanged. This finding indicates that a switch to denitrification inhibitor-based fertilisers
would be a useful measure to improve the sustainability of oilseed rape production, especially against the
background of a high nitrogen demand of oilseed rape in comparison to other crops (Malagoli et al., 2005).
1998
2008
Variable
Costs
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