For this project we work together with the clients own in-house expertise. The project focus on the carbon footprint and includes induced (cradle-to-gate) impacts in the client’s own products, as well as avoided impacts in their customer’s value chain. Most of the results are presented in proprietary reports, but some of our results have been presented to the LCA community at the LCAFood 2014 conference: Specialty Food Ingredients - Environmental Impacts and Opportunities.
Food consumption is a major driver of global environmental impacts. This paper presents an analysis of the life cycle impacts caused by global food consumption based on the newly completed input-output model; Exiobase v2. Exiobase v2 is a multi-regional input-output database covering 43 countries plus five rest-of-world regions for 2007. The data in the model includes all global product, emission and waste flows related to food consumption, i.e. a global mass flow analysis of all food related flows. The functional unit of the study was the global consumption of food in 2007. The included life cycle stages were cultivation/husbandry, processing, retail, preparation in households/restaurants and food waste disposal. The impact assessment focused on GHG-emissions and land-use. In this respect it should be noted that a model of indirect land-use changes is integrated in the Exiobase v2 model used in this study, to account for GHG- emissions caused by the use of land.
The E P&L accounting model has only been conducted for companies so far, and the companies that have applied the model have usually been large and resourceful. A key question of this project was “How can small and medium sized companies as well as other stakeholders take advantage of this new methodology of quantifying and valuing natural capital throughout the value chain?”
An E P&L conducted at the country consumption level could benefit a wider group of stakeholders, including trade associations, government bodies and the companies in the industry. More specifically, the E P&L for Danish apparels gives an overview and a complete picture of the environmental impacts related to suppliers throughout the value chain. The E P&L at this level also illustrates the relationship between what is emitted domestically and internationally. In addition, the E P&L provides information on how the Danish apparel industry works compared to other countries. On a company level, the E P&L contributes to understanding the environmental profile of different industries in the apparel supply chain, and provide useful insight to the companies on where the risks and opportunities are in the value chain. Finally on a product level the E P&L can provide a more precise product profile and illustrate the impact of substituting conventional materials with more sustainable alternatives.
The objective of this project was therefore to conduct an E P&L analysis across three levels:
1. Industry level (relevant for trade associations and government bodies)
2. Company/brand level (relevant for trade associations and companies)
3. Product level (relevant for trade associations and companies)
The results from the project can be found in the report: Danish apparel sector natural capital account.
Figure – Impact intensity for all countries of import (all tiers)
Carbon footprint is a new buzzword that has gained tremendous popularity over the last few years, especially in the United Kingdom.
Debates on the appropriate use of carbon footprinting are spreading through society like rings in the water. This in large part has been driven by retail chains and proactive companies that request or provide information to the consumers for example, for the purchase of airplane tickets and carbon offsets.
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Due to concerns about the sustainability of the energy sector, conversion of biomass to energy is increasing its hold globally. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is being adopted as an analytical tool to assess the environmental impacts in the entire cycle of biomass production and conversions to different products. This study deals with the LCIA of straw conversion to district heat in a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant and in a district heating boiler (producing heat only). Environmental impact categories are Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), aquatic and terrestrial Eutrophication Potential (EP) and Non-Renewable Energy (NRE) use. In the case of CHP, the co-produced electricity is assumed to displace the marginal Danish electricity mix. The current study showed that straw fired in the CHP plant would lead to a GWP of −187 g CO2-eq, AP 0.01 m2 UES (un-protected ecosystem), aquatic EP 0.16 g NO3-eq, terrestrial EP 0.008 m2 UES, and NRE use −0.14 MJ-primary per 1 MJ heat production. Straw conversion to heat in the CHP plant showed better environmental performances compared to the district heating boiler. Furthermore, removing straw from the field is related to the consequence e.g. decline in soil carbon sequestration, limiting soil nutrient availability, and when compared with natural gas the conversion of straw to heat would lead to a higher aquatic and terrestrial EP and AP. The study also outlays spaces for the detail sustainability assessment of straw conversion in a biorefinery and compare with the current study.
There is a need for valid and representative data on the production, resource use and emissions from different farm types in Denmark for public regulation and assessment. The data should be usable for both area-based environmental assessment (e.g. nitrate leaching per ha) and product-oriented environmental assessment (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions per kg pork). The objective of this study was to establish a national agricultural model for estimating data on resource use, production and environmentally important emissions for a set of representative farm types.
Every year a sample of farm accounts is established in order to report Danish agro-economical data to the ‘Farm Accountancy Data Network’ (FADN), and to produce ‘The annual Danish account statistics for agriculture’. The farm accounts are selected and weighted to be representative for the Danish agricultural sector, and similar samples of farm accounts are collected in most of the European countries. Based on a sample of 2138 farm accounts from year 1999 a national agricultural model, consisting of 31 farm types, was constructed. The farm accounts were grouped according to the major soil types, the number of working hours, the most important enterprise (dairy, pig, different cash crops), livestock density, etc. For each group the farm account data on the average resource use, products sold, land use and herd structure were used to establish a farm type with coherency between livestock production, feed use, land use, yields, imported feed, homegrown feed, manure production, fertilizer use and crop production. The set of farm types was scaled up to national level thus representing the whole Danish agricultural sector and the resulting production, resource use and land use was checked against the national statistics. Nutrient balance methodology and state-of-the-art emission models and factors were used to establish the emissions of nitrate, phosphate, ammonia, nitrous oxide, methane and fossil carbon dioxide from each farm type. In this paper data on resource uses and emissions from selected farm types are presented and it is demonstrated that this approach can lead to an agro-environmental inventory, which is consistent with national level estimates and still has the advantage of being disaggregated to specific farm types. Conventional dairy farm types in general emitted more nitrate but less phosphate compared with pig farm types. The methane emission was higher from dairy farm types compared with all other farm types. In general the conventional dairy farms emitted more nitrate, ammonia, and nitrous oxide, compared with organic dairy farms.
Different tillage systems result in different resource uses and environmental impacts. Reduced tillage generates savings in direct energy input and the amount of machinery items needed. As the basics for holistic Life Cycle Assessments, both the influencing direct and indirect energy as sources of greenhouse gas emissions are required. Life Cycle in- ventories (LCI) were aggregated for a number of optimised machinery systems and tillage scenarios integrating a four crop rotation consisting of spring barley, winter barley, winter wheat and winter rape seed. By applying Life Cycle Assessments to a number of tillage scenarios and whole field operations sequences, the energy efficiency and environmental impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) were evaluated.
Results showed that the total energy input was reduced by 26% for the reduced tillage system and by 41% for the no-tillage system. Energy used for traction and machine con- struction contributed between 6 and 8% of the total GHG emission per kg product. The total emission of GHG was 915 g CO2 equivalents per kg product by using the conventional tillage system, 817 g CO2 equivalents for the reduced tillage system and 855 g CO2 equivalents for the no tillage system. The no tillage system was expected to yield 10% less. The mineral- isation in the soil contributed the most (50e60%) to this emission, while the fertiliser production contributed with 28e33%. The results stress the importance of applying a systems approach to capture the implications of, for example, sustained yields as other- wise the environmental benefits can be compromised.
In order to improve the knowledge of Denmark’s “carbon footprint”, the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) has commissioned a study on the national consumption-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Besides providing new results, this study does also provide a critical review of previous studies. The focus of the review is highlighting methodological differences and any other aspects causing differences in the results obtained.
The main goal of this project is to provide the best possible estimate of Denmark’s consumption-related “carbon footprint”. By carbon footprint is meant GHG-emissions, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-eq.). Consumption-related is defined as GHG-emissions from the Danish economy including imports, while emissions associated with exports are excluded. In this respect, the limitations of the traditional geographical approach to account for national emissions are addressed by taking into account the full life cycle of imported products to Danish economy. Data on production, imports, and exports of goods and services are obtained from environmentally-extended input-output (IO) tables. An additional goal of the project is to provide an overview of the products and services imported to and exported from Denmark, and their embedded GHG-emissions.
