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Environmental Impact of Beef Production Systems

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Advances of Footprint Family for Sustainable Energy and Industrial Systems

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

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Abstract

Livestock production as a contributing factor of global warming has become a critical aspect of policy development among scientists, institutions, governments, and societies. Improving the animal farms performance in the several countries is a key strategy to meet the demand for animal protein, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving resource use efficiency. In this context, this chapter presents a global overview of beef production systems, their diversity, the way they can contribute to major global environmental issues and the evaluation of specific points for intervention. The characteristics of the beef production systems all over the world are analyzed, together with the goal and scope, the types of analysis (methods for the evaluation of the carbon footprint), the functional units generally implemented for the analyses, the allocation methods, and the uncertainties of the studies. This detailed overview allows a critical analysis of the selected studies, which are discussed in the last section of the chapter. It was found that it is important to improve the understanding of biological processes involved in the emissions of methane and nitrous oxide processes, in order to obtain more valid and reliable carbon footprint results.

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Abbreviations

AG biomass:

Above-Ground biomass

BG biomass:

Below-Ground biomass

CF:

Carbon Footprint

CP:

Crude Protein

DCCEE:

Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency

DM:

Dry Matter

ECM:

Energy-Corrected Milk

EPD:

Environmental Product Declaration

FU:

Functional Unit

GE:

Gross Energy

GHG:

Green House Gasses

GWP:

Global Warming Potential

IDF:

International Dairy Federation

IPCC:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

LCA:

Life Cycle Assessment

LCI:

Life Cycle Inventory

LWG:

Live Weight Gain

MC:

Monte Carlo

PEF:

Product Environmental Footprint

PCR:

Product Category Rules

TDN:

Total Digestible Nutrients

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  1. Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, via G. Duranti 63, 06125, Perugia, Italy

    C. Buratti, E. Belloni & F. Fantozzi

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  1. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Jingzheng Ren

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Buratti, C., Belloni, E., Fantozzi, F. (2022). Environmental Impact of Beef Production Systems. In: Ren, J. (eds) Advances of Footprint Family for Sustainable Energy and Industrial Systems. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76441-8_4

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