How to manage uncertainty in future Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) scenarios addressing the effect of climate change in crop production

Niero, Monia; Ingvordsen, Cathrine Heinz; Jørgensen, Rikke Bagger; Hauschild, Michael Zwicky

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.05.061

Cited by 38 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 69 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The EP category showed variable results with a greater uncertainty for organic scenarios, but lower for conventional ones. Results are directly linked with statistical distribution of estimated emissions [124].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Focusing on the espalier scenarios, the large use of metal materials for the construction of supporting systems generates a significant share of impacts [37,43]. The very high uncertainty degree shown through the sensitivity analysis makes inconsistent the obtained results; however, they can be useful as indicative values [124].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The analysis was carried out using SimaPro software, running 1000 iterations [124]. A triangular distribution was assumed for primary data, while the distribution considered in Ecoinvent database was held for secondary data [125].…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessment Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Vine-Growing Combining Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Multicriterial Analysis

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The wine sector is going through a significant evolution dealing with the challenges of competition issues in international markets and with necessary commitments to sustainability improvement. In the wine supply chain, the agricultural phase represents a potential source of pollution and costs. From the farmers' point of view, these contexts require them to be more attentive and find a compromise among environmental benefits, economic benefits, and costs linked to farming practices. This paper aims to make a sustainability assessment of different wine-growing scenarios located in Calabria (Southern Italy) that combines conflicting insights, i.e., environmental and economic ones, by applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to identify the main hotspots and select the alternative scenarios closest to the ideal solution through the VIKOR multicriteria method. In particular, the latter allowed us to obtain synthetic indices for a two-dimensional sustainability assessment. Conventional practices associated to the espalier training system represent the best compromise from both environmental and economic points of view, due to the higher yield per hectare. The choices regarding Functional Unit (FU) and indicators were shown to have a high influence on results.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Vine-Growing Combining Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Multicriterial Analysis

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To be cost effective, a screening analysis is usually first undertaken, which identifies critical elements in the value chain which can then be studied in more detail. As a final hotspot analysis, parts of the value chain with significant data uncertainty were identified [61].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy in the Food Industry—Insights from Product Carbon and Water Footprints

Ridoutt

Sanguansri

Bonney

et al. 2016

Climate

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Climate change adds an additional layer of complexity that needs to be considered in business strategy. For firms in the food industry, many of the important climate impacts are not directly related to food processing so a value chain approach to adaptation is recommended. However, there is a general lack of operational tools to support this. In this study, carbon and water footprints were conducted at a low-precision screening level in three case studies in Australia: Smith's potato chips, OneHarvest Calypso™ mango and selected Treasury Wine Estates products. The approach was cost-effective when compared to high-definition studies intended to support environmental labels and declarations, yet provided useful identification of physical, financial, regulatory and reputational hotspots related to climate change. A combination of diagnostic footprinting, downscaled climate projection and semi-quantitative value chain analysis is proposed as a practical and relevant toolkit to inform climate adaptation strategies.

show abstract

“…for wheat in Switzerland (Tendall and Gaillard, 2015) and UK (El Chami and Daccache, 2015), and for barley in Denmark (Dijkman et al, 2013;Niero et al, 2015b). Guidance to manage uncertainty in the definition of future LCA scenarios addressing the effect of climate change in crop production is provided at the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) level and implemented in the case of spring barley cultivation in Denmark under a future, realistic, worst-case climate scenario (Niero et al, 2015a). However, the effect of increased temperature and CO 2 concentration will also affect the impact pathway and therefore the LCIA modelling.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the influence of changing climate in present and future marine eutrophication impacts from spring barley production

Cosme

Niero

2017

Journal of Cleaner Production

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tNitrate concentration and runoff are site-specific and driven by climatic factors and crop management. As such, nitrate emissions may increase in the future due to climate change, affecting the marine eutrophication mechanism. In this context, and considering the case of spring barley production in Denmark, the paper has two objectives: (i) to estimate the present and future marine eutrophication impacts by combining a novel Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) modelling approach with a quantification of the effects of climate change on its parameterisation, and (ii) to discuss the implications of different normalisation references when comparing future Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) scenarios with current production systems. A parameterised characterisation model was developed to gauge the influence of future climatic-driven pressures on the marine eutrophication impact pathway. Spatial differentiation was added to the resulting 'present' and 'future' characterisation factors (CFs) and calculated for the Baltic and North Sea. The temporal variability of both midpoint normalised impact scores and damage scores reflect a 34% and 28% increase of the CFs in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, respectively. The temporal variability is mostly explained by CF variation and increasing future nitrogen flows. The marine eutrophication indicator scores at both midpoint and damage levels suggest that the differentiation of impacts to various receiving (and potentially perturbed) ecosystems is relevant. Damage scores are quantified with a factor 2.5 and 2.3 differentiation between the Baltic (higher) and North Seas (lower) for the present and future scenarios, respectively. The comparison of the normalisation methods, either based on total annual impacts (domestic inventory of background interventions), on ecological carrying capacity, or on the presently proposed method, point to the value of adding spatial differentiation to LCIA models. The inclusion of time variation and spatial differentiation in characterisation modelling of marine eutrophication and the identification of a paucity of adequate inventory data for future scenario analysis constitute the main outcomes of this study. Further research should aim at reducing the uncertainty of the parameterisation under future conditions and strengthening emissions projections.

show abstract

How to manage uncertainty in future Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) scenarios addressing the effect of climate change in crop production

Cited by 38 publications

References 69 publications

Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Vine-Growing Combining Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Multicriterial Analysis

Assessment of Environmental and Economic Impacts of Vine-Growing Combining Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing and Multicriterial Analysis

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy in the Food Industry—Insights from Product Carbon and Water Footprints

Modelling the influence of changing climate in present and future marine eutrophication impacts from spring barley production

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About