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.
The purpose of this work was to evaluate from cradle to gate the environmental performance of five vegetable oils: palm oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and peanut oil, using a consequential approach and including indirect land use change. The impact assessment focused on greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, land use and water consumption. For GHG emissions, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil were the best performing ones, followed by soybean oil and palm oil and with peanut oil as the oil with the highest impact. Focusing on water consumption, sunflower oil was the oil with the smallest impact, followed by rapeseed oil, palm oil and soybean oil, and with peanut oil as the oil with the largest contribution. Regarding land use, palm oil and soybean oil were the oils associated with the smallest contribu-tion, followed by rapeseed oil, and with sunflower oil and peanut oil as the oils with the largest net occupation of land.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate and compare the environmental performance of five different vegetable oils, including the relevant market responses induced by the oils’ by-products. The oils under study are palm oil, soybean oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and peanut oil. These oils are to a large extent substitutable and they are among the largest oils in terms of global production. Besides evaluating the environmental performance of each oil individually, the effect of reducing each one of the oils and replacing it with a mix of the others is also evaluated. The life cycle inventory is carried out using a consequential approach, which implies that co-product allocation is avoided by use of substitution, and that marginal market mixes are generally applied. The environmental performance is evaluated by focussing on global warming, land use and water consumption. With respect to global warming, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil are the best performing, followed by soybean oil and palm oil, and with peanut oil as the least good performing. For land use, palm oil and soybean oil are the oils associated with the smallest contribution, followed by rapeseed oil, and with sunflower oil and peanut oil as the oils with the largest net occupation of land. When focussing on water consumption (using the water stress index), sunflower oil had the smallest impact, followed by rapeseed oil, palm oil and soybean oil, and with peanut oil as the oil with the largest contribution.
Life cycle screening, defined as the initial data collection and interpretation of the environmental effects of a product system, is applied to two food products. Examples of the results are given and some methodological suggestions are given to simplify the procedures related to product definition, geographical origin and co-product allocation. It is suggested that life cycle studies of food products may be more easily performed and their results become more comparable if industrial conventions can be agreed to on these aspects.
The Nano3Bio project aims to develop biotechnological production systems for nanoformulated chitosans. Chitosans, chitin-derived polysaccharides, vary in: (1) degree of polymerisation (DP); (2) degree of acetylation (DA) and (3) patterns of acetylation (PA).
Chitosans are among the most versatile and most promising biopolymers and have excellent physico-chemical and material properties as well as a wide range of biological functionalities. Their economic potential is far from being exploited due to: (1) problems with reproducibility of biological activities as today’s chitosans are rather poorly defined mixtures and (2) the threat of allergen contamination from their typical animal origin.
The Nano3Bio project will overcome the hurdles towards market entry and market penetration by producing in vitro and in vivo defined polymers with controlled, tailor-made DP, DA and PA.
Applications:
The first life cycle assessment of chitosan production based on data from two real producers located in India and Europe in presented in an article: 'Life cycle assessment of chitosan production in India and Europe'.
Arla Foods wanted to estimate and track the development in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission per kg raw milk - both at farm level, national level as well as corporate level, which include emissions in several countries. We developed a tool, which can be used for calculation of carbon footprint of milk both at a farm level and at a national and corporate level. The tool is used by Danish dairy farmers and we also calculated the national carbon footprint of Danish and Swedish milk produced in 2005, and Danish, Swedish, German and British milk produced in 1990.
All results and interpretations for the carbon footprints of Danish and Swedish milk are presented in Schmidt and Dalgaard (2012a). Further, the used terms, definitions and methodological framework is also described in Schmidt and Dalgaard (2012b). The national carbon footprint of milk Life cycle assessment of British and German milk (1990) at farm gate is presented in de Rosa M, Dalgaard R and Schmidt J H (2913). The Life cycle assessment of milk National baselines for Germany, Denmark, Sweden and United Kingdom 1990 and 2012 are presented in Dalgaard R, Schmidt J H and Cenian K (2016).
The model includes switches that enables for, within the same scope, transforming the results to comply with 1) consequential LCA, 2) allocation/average modelling (or ‘attributional LCA’), 3) PAS 2050 and 4) The International Dairy Federations (IDF) guide to standard life cycle assessment methodology for the dairy sector. In Dalgaard, Schmidt and Flysjö (2014) the model is explained in detail.
