Impact categories for life cycle assessment research of seafood production systems: Review and prospectus

Pelletier, Nathan; Ayer, Nathan W.; Tyedmers, Peter; Kruse, Sarah A.; Flysjö, Anna; Robillard, Greg; Ziegler, Friederike; Scholz, Astrid; Sonesson, Ulf

doi:10.1007/s11367-006-0275-3

Cited by 89 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Originally developed to evaluate the life cycle impacts associated with manufactured products, LCA is increasingly being applied to a wide array of food production systems (see, for example: Andersson et al 1998;Andersson and Ohlsson 1999;Haas et al 2001;Hospido et al 2003;Mattsson and Sonesson 2003;Pelletier et al 2007), including a number of seafood production systems (Christensen and Ritter 2000;Seppälä et al 2001;Ziegler et al 2003;Thrane 2004;Hospido et al 2006;Hospido and Tyedmers 2005). While it is not a standardized life cycle assessment, a study Heller and Keoleian (2000) used life cycle thinking to create and apply sustainability indicators (i.e., environmental, social and economic) to assess the food system in the United States.…”

Section: An Application To Salmon Food Production Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic indicators as a complement to life cycle assessment—an application to salmon production systems

Kruse

Flysjö

Kasperczyk³

et al. 2008

Int J Life Cycle Assess

Self Cite

102

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Background, aim, and scope There is a growing recognition on the part of industry, policymakers, and consumers that sustainable industry practices are needed to maintain environmental and social well being. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an internationally standardized analytical framework that has traditionally focused on evaluation of the environmental impacts of processes or products using a cradle-to-grave approach. Yet, sustainability, defined generally, requires that assessments consider not only environmental but also social and economic impacts-the other two pillars of sustainability. Even though the LCA methodology has the potential to include both social and economic indicators, and SETAC guidelines recommend the inclusion of such impact categories in all detailed LCAs, no established set of metrics exists to describe the relationship between socioeconomic indicators (SEIs) and a specific product or process; nor is there a common understanding on how such metrics might be developed. This article presents the methods for and development of a suite of socioeconomic indicators that complement the LCA methodology and provides a comprehensive approach for assessing the cradle-to-grave sustainability of a product or process.Methods A combined top-down and bottom-up approach serves as the basis for development of the set of socioeconomic indicators presented here. Generally recognized societal values, industry specific issues, and financial constraints associated with collection of data necessary for measurement of the indicators are all factors considered in this approach. In our categorization, socioeconomic indicators fall into two types: additive indicators and descriptive indicators. Results Indicators are categorized based on fundamental methodological differences and then used to describe the socioeconomic impacts associated with salmon production. Additive indicators (e.g., production costs and value added) and descriptive indicators (e.g., fair wage and contribution to personal income) are both discussed. Discussion There is a need to further develop and refine methods to assess the results of socioeconomic indicators using a life cycle perspective. It would be most interesting to conduct additional case studies that focus on such methodological development, particularly trade-offs between stakeholder groups and pillars of sustainability. Additional areas of discussion are (1) the need for data to populate socioeconomic indicators and (2) defining system boundaries for socioeconomic indicators. Conclusions This article presents a set of socioeconomic indicators designed to serve as a complement for the LCA framework, thus, increasing the framework's effectiveness as a measure of the overall sustainability of a product or process. Development of socioeconomic indicators as a complement to LCA is still in its early stages, however, and further research is required.

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Section: An Application To Salmon Food Production Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socioeconomic indicators as a complement to life cycle assessment—an application to salmon production systems

Kruse

Flysjö

Kasperczyk³

et al. 2008

Int J Life Cycle Assess

Self Cite

102

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“…In order to improve fisheries management, efforts must be made to reduce by-catch and discards, the disturbance created in benthic communities due to the use of trawlers and other types of gear, and the alteration of trophic dynamics (Pelletier et al 2007). Besides these direct impacts caused by fishing activities, research shows that energy demand and materials used in industrial fishing may also create considerable environmental and socioeconomic impacts.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an attempt to identify, quantify, and assess environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of seafood, life cycle assessment (LCA) is considered a useful and powerful methodology. Thus, LCA has been proven suitable for quantifying a subset of the environmental impacts associated with fisheries and aquaculture production (Pelletier et al 2007). However, further efforts are required to improve seafood supply transparency and accountability (Iles 2007;Ayer et al 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Combined application of life cycle assessment and data envelopment analysis as a methodological approach for the assessment of fisheries

Vázquez‐Rowe

Iribarren

Moreira

et al. 2010

Int J Life Cycle Assess

130

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Background, aim, and scope The synergistic use of life cycle assessment (LCA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed as a new methodological approach to link environmental and socioeconomic assessments of fisheries. Therefore, the goal is to combine LCA and DEA in order to increase the assessment ability of both tools when applied to these fisheries. Specifically, the joint inclusion of economic aspects and the consideration of currently underrepresented environmental impact categories are tackled. Materials and methods A five-step method is presented to combine LCA and DEA so that operational benchmarking and eco-efficiency verification are included together with the assessment of the environmental performance of fishing vessels. Some guidelines are also provided to orientate methodological choices in DEA. Furthermore, the applicability of the method for fisheries is discussed using a Spanish coastal trawl fishery as an example. Results The use of the five-step LCA+DEA method for fisheries demonstrated the dependence of environmental impacts on the operational performance of the vessels. Operational inefficiencies were detected and target performance improvement values were consequently defined for the inefficient vessels. The combined method favored quantification of potential eco-efficiency gains. Optional features of DEA models allowed the inclusion of controversial impact issues such as by-catch discarding.Discussion As demonstrated by the application of the method to the trawling case study, this methodology facilitates joint consideration of the environmental impacts of the fleet together with economic issues such as operational efficiency. Moreover, the potential inclusion of "bad outputs" in DEA models makes the proposed method suitable for quantifying the potential improvements in currently underrepresented issue areas such as discarding by-catch. Conclusions The proposed methodological approach was found as an adequate alternative to complement the mere use of LCA for fisheries. Its use avoids problems with standard deviations which usually arise when LCA practitioners work with average inventories. Moreover, the new approach facilitates the interpretation of the results for practitioners who deal with multiple individual LCAs for the same fishery. Furthermore, the joint application of LCA and DEA carry synergistic effects related to the link between operational efficiency and environmental impacts. Recommendations and perspectives The proposed LCA+DEA approach for fisheries is recommended for its regular use. The need of multiple input/output data for multiple vessels is not seen as a limitation in the case of fisheries research.

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“…The impact categories for an LCA were outlined in Chapter 1, Section 1.2.3, Phase 3: Life cycle impact analysis, and have been studied with respect to seafood production systems (Pelletier et al, 2007). They looked at the range of the published seafood production LCAs and those from agriculture which might transfer to seafood production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainability Impacts of Fish‐Processing Operations

Hall

2010

Fish Processing

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The background against which the sustainability of the fish-processing industry (FPI) operates was set out in Chapter 1 of this book. The overall picture was of a static (at best) wild capture fishery, which was, however, flexible in the species and the ocean areas which were being exploited. The static performance of the wild capture fishery was buoyed by the increased supply from the aquaculture sector, which, in its turn, faced issues over feed supplies. From a Sustainable Development (SD) approach four areas were recognized as important in the analysis of sustainability in the FPI: energy usage, water usage, effluents and by-product development. Subsequent chapters addressed these themes for canning, curing, freezing and chilling, and surimi production -the long-standing fish-processing operations. This chapter attempts to draw these themes together into a generic approach whilst at the same time recognizing that not all approaches will be equally applicable in all locations and for every level of technology. Nevertheless, recognition of the important factors for any FPI technology should stimulate ideas to improve sustainability to the appropriate level of that technology. Table 6.1 indicates the relative importance of each of the SD themes for each process sector. Interpretation of the table requires care. For example, the energy usage for surimi production is rated medium effect but this does not allow for the freezing and storage of the product, only the production operations -a point which will be addressed in the Section 6.4 on life cycle assessment (LCA). Pre-processing operations have been added as a class of their own as they are inevitably performed and contribute significantly to the effluent and by-product impacts.The author's approach in this chapter will be seen as Eurocentric although this is not a source of embarrassment. The European Union (EU) has a commitment to SD, good statistical information on fisheries and its FPI and a research programme, which is addressing the problems under its Framework Programmes. In addition, it has a powerful legislative programme which drives industry sectors, sometimes reluctantly, into line with its wishes. Equally valid work is being done in Canada, the United States (particularly Fish Processing: Sustainability and New OpportunitiesEdited by George M. Hall

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Impact categories for life cycle assessment research of seafood production systems: Review and prospectus

Cited by 89 publications

References 48 publications

Socioeconomic indicators as a complement to life cycle assessment—an application to salmon production systems

Socioeconomic indicators as a complement to life cycle assessment—an application to salmon production systems

Combined application of life cycle assessment and data envelopment analysis as a methodological approach for the assessment of fisheries

Sustainability Impacts of Fish‐Processing Operations

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