Using Life Cycle Assessment To Assess And Improve The Environmental Performance Of Organic Production Systems

Summary

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an international method that allows an estimation of a set of environmental impacts of products. A growing number of studies have used LCA to assess environmental impacts of agricultural products, but available LCA data mainly concern conventional agriculture. The ACV-Bio project has created LCA data for arable crops, grassland, forages, grapes, cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry in France. For most products, contrasting production systems were assessed to explore a diversity of organic systems. The web-based MEANS-InOut software was used to facilitate and streamline the generation of LCA data, and their external review by independent experts. Impact values were calculated for nine indicators. The InOut software was enhanced to allow assessment of intercrops and cropping systems, which are important elements of organic systems and of agro-ecological systems in general. Eco-design scenarios of pig and grape production systems allowed impact reductions of 0 - 22%, depending on the impact considered.