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

GROUP 6, SESSION B: METHODS, TOOLS, DATABASES 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
912
168. Social life cycle assessment of milk production in Canada
Jean-Michel Couture 1,* , Catherine Brodeur 1 , Julie Parent 2 , Jean-Pierre Revéret 1,2 , Mia Lafontaine 3
1 Groupe AGECO, 2014 Cyrille-Duquet suite 307, Quebec, QC, G1N 4N6, Canada, 2 UQAM, Department of
Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility, Suite R-3555, École des sciences de la gestion, QC, H2X
3X2, Canada, and Groupe AGECO, 3 Quantis, 395 Laurier Ouest, Montreal, QC, H2V 2K3, Canada, Corresponding
author. E-mail: jean-michel.couture@groupeageco.ca
The agricultural sector in general and the livestock and dairy sectors in particular have been over the years
increasingly blamed for their environmental impacts, especially in regards to their greenhouse gases emissions
(Steinfeld et al. 2006). In the same time, there has been a growing awareness that farming activities
equally induce significant social and economic impacts over a wide range of stakeholders (Van Calker et al.
2005). As new challenges arise from this context, the sector needs to improve his sustainability level to respond
to critics.
In this regards, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, which addresses the environmental impacts
throughout a product's life cycle, has become a widely used tool to identify hotspots and to foster actions to
improve a product’ environmental sustainability. With the recent development of the Socio-economic Life
Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) methodology, this approach now also enables to assess, in an integrated way, for
the social and economic aspects of sustainability. In order to document the Canadian milk sector’ sustainability,
this integrated LCA framework has thus been used in this project to comprehensively define the environmental
and socio-economic impacts of the sector’s whole life cycle.
However, whereas E-LCA now relies on a well-defined methodology, S-LCA is a new technique whose
methodological underpinnings have only been recently specified in the UNEP’s Guidelines for Social Assessment
of Products released in June 2009 (UNEP 2009). Based on those Guidelines, this project has developed
a fully operational assessment methodology adjusted to the Canadian milk sector’ specificities. More
specifically, two assessment frameworks have been used to assess the social and economic impacts induced
all along the Canadian milk sector’s life cycle. For enterprises found within dairy farms’ sphere of influence,
a Specific Analysis has been performed by using a set of indicators related to the sector’ specific issues of
concern and stakeholders categories. A Potential Hotspot Analysis has been used instead to assess, outside
the dairy farms’ sphere of influence, the potential misbehaviours of enterprises in regards to acknowledged
social norms.
In addition of offering a detailed set of socio-economic indicators reflecting the particular social issues of
concern found within the agricultural sector, this project contributed to the advancement of the S-LCA methodology
by clarifying the steps to conduct such an assessment in practice, in particular in regards to the two
unique and complementary assessment frameworks. It proposes furthermore to integrate to the social and
economic dimensions of sustainability with the environmental one in one broad assessment methodology.
References
UNEP/SETAC, 2009. Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products. United Nations Environment
Programme. Paris.
Steinfeld, H., Gerber, P., Wassenaar, T., Castel, V., Rosales, M., De Haan, C., 2006. Livestock's long
shadow: Environmental issues and options. FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations],
Rome, 391 p.
Van Calker, K.J., Berentsen, P.B.M., Giesen, G.W.J., Huirne, R.B.M., 2005. Identifying and ranking attributes
that determine sustainability in Dutch dairy farming. J. Agri., Food, and Human Values Society 22,
53-63