Page 193 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

178 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT HANDBOOK

the first has a great relevance, the second is critically important considering
that, on average, more than fifteen per cent of household food is wasted. In
this sense consumer behavior and kitchen preparation cover an important role
in food life cycle. More attention needs to be dedicated to this aspect in order
to reduce the total environmental burden of food. Regarding carbon balance,
if the study considers the biogenic carbon calculation in the system boundar-
ies, as obvious, both carbon sequestration and emission need to be taken into
account; in any case when considering a net balance different from zero, since
one of the two effects prevails, it is important not to report the carbon gain to
only the annual cycle of the crop but it is necessary to consider the land use for
a time equal to that of global warming.
In Food LCA the fate of pollutants associated with the use of pesticides and
fertilizers depends on site-specific data. The various approaches adopted to
face the estimation of the effects of pesticide and fertilizers naturally lead to
different results both in terms of affected impact categories and absolute emis-
sion results; these results may further change, especially in comparative stud-
ies, if one uses different methods of impact assessment.
The site specificity and the difference in the nature of the data involved,
when considering water and land use in LCA, is such that there are no clearly
defined unique methodologies for such categories. Nonetheless, there is a
growing effort in trying to quantify the impact from these categories and
there are applications of the derived methodologies to agri-food products.
Such approaches should, whenever possible, be followed when assessing
food and drink products in order to improve the overall quality of the LCA
results.
Even though the use of LCA in the food industry has grown quickly in the
last decade, this growth is mainly due to the activities of central governments.
At the company level, with some exception, there is still not much systematic
and routine use of LCA. In particular, company data regarding agricultural
fields and industrial plants, possibly characterized regionally, is desperately
needed to build up corporate databases that could also be made available to
open source LCA software.

References

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Basset-Mens, C, & van der Werf, H.M. (2003). "Environmental assessment of contrasting pig
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