Biofuels were given an important role in the Danish government’s energy and climate-change mitigation strategy (Energiaftale 2012). However, following a report questioning the carbon neutrality of different biofuels (Concito 2011), Concito is interested in assessing further the climate impacts of different biofuels. The current report includes Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) screenings for calculating the carbon footprint (CF) of six different biofuels: wood pellets, wood chips, straw, biogas, ethanol and biodiesel. Critical sources of emissions in the product systems of the biofuels, which are often excluded from LCA studies, are addressed in the current study. These include indirect land use changes (iLUC), time dependency of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, manipulation of the carbon in biomass and soil carbon.
The environmental effect of globalisation has been debated intensively in the last decades. Only few well-documented analyses of global versus local product alternatives exist, whilst recommendations on buying local are vast. At the same time, the European Environmental Agency’s Third Assessment concludes that the resource use within the EU is stabilising at the expense of increased resource use for import of products to the EU. Taking its point of departure in vegetable oils, this article compares rapeseed oil and palm oil as a local and a global alternative for meeting the increasing demand for these products in the EU. By using detailed life cycle assessment (LCA), this study compares the environmental impacts and identifies alternative ways of producing rapeseed oil and palm oil to the EU market in order to reduce environmental impacts.
The consequential approach for system delimitation is applied (Ekvall and Weidema 2004; Weidema 2003; Schmidt 2008a; Schmidt and Weidema 2008). This approach differs from the attributional approach in a way that the actual affected suppliers and technologies are modelled instead of averages. In addition, co-product allocation is avoided by system expansion. The method for life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is EDIP97 updated (LCA-Center 2007). In addition, land use and the associated impacts on biodiversity are assessed using the LCIA method described in Schmidt (2008b).
The characterised results of the LCA show that palm oil is environmentally preferable to rapeseed oil within ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical smog and land use, whilst the differences within global warming and biodiversity are less clear. The most significant process contributing to global warming from rapeseed oil is the cultivation of rapeseed, whilst the oil palm cultivation and the palm oil mill (effluent treatment) are equally important. Regarding land use and biodiversity for rapeseed oil, the avoided production caused by system expansion has a major role, whilst system expansion has only limited effect on the results of palm oil.
Alternative cultivation practices and technologies are assessed. The findings for rapeseed oil are that local expansions of the cultivated area on set-aside area is preferable to displacement of crops which are compensated for by increased agricultural production abroad and that the full press technology in the oil mill is preferable to solvent extraction. Concerning palm oil, cultivation on peat increases the contribution to global warming significantly with a factor of 4–5 compared to cultivation on the current mix of soils types. The other hotspot related to global warming (effluent treatment) can be markedly reduced by installation of digester tanks and subsequent utilisation of biogas.
The results of the scenarios show that the approach to system delimitation matters. When the consequential approach to system delimitation is applied in the agricultural stage, uncertainties show to be significant. These uncertainties are mainly related to the determination of how increased production is achieved, increased cultivated area and/or increased intensification. Overall, palm oil tends to be environmentally preferable to rapeseed oil within all impact categories except global warming, biodiversity and ecotoxicity where the difference is less pronounced and where it is highly dependent on the assumptions regarding system delimitation in the agricultural stage.
Since the environmental performance of rapeseed oil and palm oil is a result of the current applied technologies and since improvement options exist in both product systems, it may be more relevant for decision makers to focus on requirements on the applied technologies in the product systems rather than preferring the one oil over the other.
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The land use required in order to meet the increasing demand for biodiesel has significant impacts. New methodological developments within environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) establish a cause–effect relationship between the demand for biodiesel and its impacts on biodiversity. The objective of this article is to assess and compare the impacts of rapeseed oil (RSO) production in the EU and palm oil (PO) production in Southeast Asia. The functional unit of the LCA is 20.8 Mtoe (million tons oil equivalents) biodiesel equalling the EU25 goals for biodiesel in 2020. Land occupation and transformation are quantified for the two alternative vegetable oils, and losses throughout the product chain from cultivation over crushing to refining are inventoried. Market mechanisms and land which is indirectly affected by product substitutions from co-products are included in the modelling. Land occupation and transformation are evaluated by the use of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) models on land use and biodiversity. Three basic scenarios are evaluated: (1) RSO-based biodiesel is produced from rapeseed grown on fields which were previously grown by other crops (barley, BL) – the displaced BL is imported from abroad; (2) RSO-based biodiesel is produced from rapeseed grown on former set-aside land in the EU; and (3) PO-based biodiesel produced in Southeast Asia is imported to the EU. It is concluded that the new EU policies on using set-aside land for energy crops cannot cover the European demand for biodiesel and crops must thus be imported from outside the EU. This means that land use outside the EU is affected. The modelling shows that the use of PO affects the land use in Malaysia or Indonesia and that Canadian land use for BL cultivation is affected when rapeseed is produced in the EU. The impacts on land use and biodiversity are presented for all three scenarios. Finally, it is discussed how an LCA perspective like the one applied here can contribute to the assessment of environmental impacts within land use science.
The overall environmental impacts from consumption of meat and dairy products in EU-27 have been assessed by the use of hybrid life cycle assessment (input-output data supplemented by specific process data). For the impact assessment, we applied a flexible model that allows results to be presented both in the 14 traditional environmental midpoint indicators (global warming potentials, photochemical ozone creation potential, etc.) and in monetary units (Euro). Specifically for this project, a damage model for aquatic eutrophication was developed. We identified and quantified the improvement options for all processes contributing more than 10% to each of the midpoint impact categories. Rebound effects, synergies and dysergies of the different options were taken into account and we show the importance of rebound effects and interrelationships of the improvement options, as well as market constraints. The environmental impacts were monetarised and a separate socio-economic assessment performed, thus allowing a cost-benefit assessment of the improvements. We also analysed the significance of discounting. Uncertainties and limitations of the study are discussed.
The rest of the proceedings can be found here: http://edepot.wur.nl/8243
Soybean meal is an important protein input to the European livestock production, with Argentina being an important supplier. The area cultivated with soybeans is still increasing globally, and so are the number of LCAs where the production of soybean meal forms part of the product chain. In recent years there has been increasing focus on how soybean production affects the environment. The purpose of the study was to estimate the environmental consequences of soybean meal consumption using a consequential LCA approach. The functional unit is ‘one kg of soybean meal produced in Argentina and delivered to Rotterdam Harbor’.
Soybean meal has the co-product soybean oil. In this study, the consequential LCA method was applied, and co-product allocation was thereby avoided through system expansion. In this context, system expansion implies that the inputs and outputs are entirely ascribed to soybean meal, and the product system is subsequently expanded to include the avoided production of palm oil. Presently, the marginal vegetable oil on the world market is palm oil but, to be prepared for fluctuations in market demands, an alternative product system with rapeseed oil as the marginal vegetable oil has been established. EDIP97 (updated version 2.3) was used for LCIA and the following impact categories were included: Global warming, eutrophication, acidification, ozone depletion and photochemical smog.
Two soybean loops were established to demonstrate how an increased demand for soybean meal affects the palm oil and rapeseed oil production, respectively. The characterized results from LCA on soybean meal (with palm oil as marginal oil) were 721 gCO2 eq. for global warming potential, 0.3 mg CFC11 eq. for ozone depletion potential, 3.1 g SO2 eq. for acidification potential, −2 g NO3 eq. for eutrophication potential and 0.4 g ethene eq. for photochemical smog potential per kg soybean meal. The average area per kg soybean meal consumed was 3.6 m2year. Attributional results, calculated by economic and mass allocation, are also presented. Normalised results show that the most dominating impact categories were: global warming, eutrophication and acidification. The ‘hot spot’ in relation to global warming, was ‘soybean cultivation’, dominated by N2O emissions from degradation of crop residues (e.g., straw) and during biological nitrogen fixation. In relation to eutrophication and acidification, the transport of soybeans by truck is important, and sensitivity analyses showed that the acidification potential is very sensitive to the increased transport distance by truck.
The potential environmental impacts (except photochemical smog) were lower when using rapeseed oil as the marginal vegetable oil, because the avoided production of rapeseed contributes more negatively compared with the avoided production of palm oil. Identification of the marginal vegetable oil (palm oil or rapeseed oil) turned out to be important for the result, and this shows how crucial it is in consequential LCA to identify the right marginal product system (e.g., marginal vegetable oil).
Consequential LCAs were successfully performed on soybean meal and LCA data on soybean meal are now available for consequential (or attributional) LCAs on livestock products. The study clearly shows that consequential LCAs are quite easy to handle, even though it has been necessary to include production of palm oil, rapeseed and spring barley, as these production systems are affected by the soybean oil co-product.
We would appreciate it if the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment had articles on the developments on, for example, marginal protein, marginal vegetable oil, marginal electricity (related to relevant markets), marginal heat, marginal cereals and, likewise, on metals and other basic commodities. This will not only facilitate the work with consequential LCAs, but will also increase the quality of LCAs.
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The lack of reliable communication tools is anticipated to become an important barrier to design and sell products with improved environmental performance. In this paper, environmental product declarations, EPDs, and in particular a Stepwise EPD approach is investigated as a means to overcome the communication barrier. The experiences of ten European SMEs who have tried to use Stepwise EPDs for market communication and as a basis for eco-design are described and discussed. The experiences suggest that Stepwise EPDs based on life cycle assessment can be a cost-efficient tool to improve the environmental performance of products. For normal marketing activities the Stepwise EPDs were disappointing. Using the underlying LCA as a platform for in-depth communication with selected parties in the supply chain showed more promise.
The report is a scientific contribution to the European Commission's Integrated Product Policy framework, which seeks to minimise the environmental degradation caused throughout the life cycle of products.
This report first presents a systematic overview of the life cycle of meat and dairy products and their environmental impacts, covering the full food chain. It goes on to provide a comprehensive analysis of the improvement options that allow reducing the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle. Finally, the report assesses the different options regarding their feasibility as well as their potential environmental and socioeconomic benefits and costs.
The report shows that meat and dairy products contribute on average 24% to the environmental impacts from the total final consumption in EU-27, while constituting only 6% of the economic value. The main improvement options were identified in agricultural production, in food management by households (avoidance of food wastage), and related to power savings. When all environmental improvement potentials are taken together, the aggregated environmental impacts (external costs) of meat and dairy products may be reduced by about 20%.
This paper concerns the Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC) and the implementing measures (IM) in which ecodesign requirements are set up for energy-using and energy-related products. Previous studies have found that the requirements have a unilateral focus on energy consumption and the use phase. This is not in line with the scientific understanding of ecodesign, where attention should be put on all life cycle phases and all relevant environmental impact categories. This study focuses on the requirements for televisions (TV). A life cycle assessment (LCA) is carried out on two TVs to analyse if other environmental hotspots and life cycle phases should be included in the requirements in the IM of the Ecodesign Directive besides energy consumption in the use phase analysis.
The consequential approach is used. The data for the LCA have been gathered from two manufacturers of TVs. In one case, the data were delivered in Excel spreadsheets; in the other case, the authors of this paper together with the manufacturer disassembled a TV and collected the data manually.
When applying the consequential approach, the production phase has the highest environmental impact, which is in contradiction with the focus area of the IM. The result of the sensitivity analysis is that the source of electricity is a potentially significant contributor of uncertainty. However, even in a coal-based scenario, the contribution from the production phase is approximately 30 %.
Based on these results, it is concluded that for future requirement setting in IM, it is necessary to set up requirements that cover more life cycle phases of the product in order to address the most important impacts.
