Method for calculating carbon footprint of cattle feeds – including contribution from soil carbon changes and use of cattle manure

Mogensen, Lisbeth; Kristensen, Troels; Nguyen, Thu Lan T.; Knudsen, Marie Trydeman

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.02.023

Cited by 77 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Lindholm (2010) argued that when assessing land-use issues, the land use must be compared against a baseline, but she noted that authors differ regarding choice of reference land use. In some of the studies reviewed, nitrogen and carbon fluxes were inventoried in comparison to another type of human-induced land use such as 'business as usual' development of agricultural land, managed forest or landfill management without the studied system (Schmidt 2007;Vellinga et al 2009;Jury et al 2010;Kaufman et al 2010;Malça and Freire 2011;Guo et al 2011;Rutland 2011;Nuss et al 2012;Rödl 2012;Evangelisti et al 2014;Mogensen et al 2014;Evangelisti et al 2015).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In order to provide an equal functional unit, more land may be required in the case where no fertilisers are applied. Thus, the higher land requirements imply a larger foregone carbon (Evangelisti et al 2014(Evangelisti et al , 2015Guo et al 2011;Jury et al 2010;Kaufman et al 2010;Malça and Freire 2011;Mogensen et al 2014;Nuss et al 2012;Rödl 2012;Rutland 2011;Schmidt 2007;Vellinga et al 2009) The actual annual emissions in the BAU equal that of the studied system; thus the overall attributed emissions are −5+5=0 t CO 2 /ha,a Natural or quasi-natural steady state Aims to describe the difference in ecosystem quality between the studied land use and the initial natural or quasi-natural steady state of the land Very theoretical for long managed lands; major problem to define and quantify the steady state and timing for initial land-use change In the illustrative example, cropland is cultivated for 20 years in the studied system, and it is associated with a carbon stock in living biomass, soil and litter equalling 70 t C/ha (~250 t CO 2 /ha), and emissions from cultivation equalling 5 t CO 2 /ha,a. A similar cropping system has taken place just before the studied system for 10 years.…”

Section: 'Zero Baseline'mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attributional life cycle assessment: is a land-use baseline necessary?

Soimakallio

Cowie

Brandão³

et al. 2015

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose This paper aims to clarify the application of a landuse baseline in attributional life cycle assessment (ALCA) for product systems involving land use, through consideration of the fundamental purpose of ALCA. Currently, there is no clear view in the literature whether a baseline should be used when accounting for environmentally relevant physical flows related to land use. Methods An extensive search of literature was carried out using the key terms 'attributional life cycle assessment' and 'attributional LCA' in the Google Scholar web search engine. Approximately 700 publications were reviewed and summarised according to their type and scope, relevance of land use, key statements and references given for ALCA, and arguments for and against using a baseline in ALCA. Based on the literature review and supplementary literature references, a critical discussion on the use of a baseline and determination of the most appropriate land-use baseline in ALCA is provided. Results and discussion A few studies clearly argued that only absolute (observable) flows without a baseline are to be inventoried in ALCA, while the majority of the studies did not make any clear statement for or against. On the other hand, a land-use baseline was explicitly applied or proposed in a minority of the studies only, despite the fact that we classified land use as highly relevant for the majority of the studies reviewed. Furthermore, the LCA guidelines reviewed give contradictory recommendations. The most cited studies for the definition of ALCA provide general rules for selecting processes based on observable flows but do not argue that observable flows necessarily describe the environmentally relevant physical flows. Conclusions We conclude that a baseline is required to separate the studied parts of the technosphere from natural processes and to describe the impact of land use on ecosystem quality, such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity. The most coherent baseline for human-induced land-use in ALCA is natural regeneration. As the natural-regeneration baseline has typically been excluded, may vary bio-geographically and temporally, and is subject to uncertainties, case studies applying it should be performed so that implications can be studied and evaluated. This is particularly important for agricultural and forestry systems, such as food, feed, fibre, timber and biofuels. Responsible editor: Matthias FinkbeinerElectronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: 'Zero Baseline'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Attributional life cycle assessment: is a land-use baseline necessary?

Soimakallio

Cowie

Brandão³

et al. 2015

Int J Life Cycle Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Most LCA studies have traditionally not included soil carbon sequestration in the carbon footprint calculation due to methodological limitations (Brandão et al 2011), despite the fact that Smith et al (2007) estimated soil carbon sequestration to contribute about 89% to the global mitigation potential from agriculture. However, some recent LCA studies have included soil carbon sequestration in the carbon footprint calculation for milk (Guerci et al 2013, O'Brien et al 2014) and in crop and feed production relative to different managements soil strategies (Knudsen et al 2014, Mogensen et al 2014). Indirectly soil carbon sequestration has been taken into account in Ripoll-Bosch et al (2013) , they use agri-environmental payments from CAP to allocate emissions to ecosystem services provided for grazing systems.…”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon footprint of milk from sheep farming systems in Northern Spain including soil carbon sequestration in grasslands

Batalla

Knudsen

Mogensen

et al. 2015

Journal of Cleaner Production

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“…Typically, the farm emission is 85-90% of the total emission in the chain from field to consumer based on the present use of energy for transport and processing at the dairy plant or slaughterhouse (Van Middelaar et al, 2011;Thoma et al, 2013;Mogensen et al, 2014). The proportion from farm gate onwards might have been lower back in time as the industry and consumption had a more local base, but not of a size that would change the ranking of the environmental impact per produced unit over time.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%