Life Cycle Assessment in the Olive Oil Sector

Abstract

The olive oil industry is a significant productive sector in the European Union and the related production process is characterised by a variety of different practices and techniques for the agricultural production of olives and for their processing into olive oil. Depending on these different procedures, olive oil production is associated with several adverse effects on the environment, both in the agricultural and in the olive oil production phase. As a consequence, tools such as LCA are becoming increasingly important for this type of industry. Following an overview of the characteristics of the olive oil supply chain and its main environmental problems, the authors of this chapter provide a description of the international state of the art of LCA implementation in this specific sector, as well as briefly describing other life cycle thinking methodologies and tools (such as simplified LCA, footprint labels and Environmental Product Declarations). Then, the methodological problems connected with the application of LCA in the olive oil production sector are analysed in depth, starting from a critical comparative analysis of the applicative LCA case studies in the olive oil production supply chain. Finally, guidelines for the application of LCA in the olive oil production sector are proposed.

Conclusions

The critical comparative analysis allows some general hot spots of the olive and olive oil supply chain to be highlighted:

• When comparing different kinds of vegetable oil, olive oil resulted as more eco-compatible than sunflower seed oil for all the categories except for land use, and for both systems the phase with the greatest impact is the agricultural one (Nicoletti et al. 2001);

• When performing a cradle-to-gate or a cradle-to-grave LCA analysis, the agricultural phase results as the one with the greatest impact in almost all the impact categories (Avraamides and Fatta 2008; Christodoulopoulou et al. 2011; Iraldo et al. 2013; Salomone 2002; Testa et al. 2012);

• When focusing on the cultivation phase, the environmental impacts are mainly due to the use of fertilisers that cause eutrophication and acidification (Nicoletti and Notarnicola 2000; Salomone 2002), as well as the use of pesticides and land use in conventional olive cultivation (Olivieri et al. 2005b, 2007a). Considering different practices, it can be observed that the irrigation system is more eco-compatible than the dry system thanks to its higher olive productivity (Nicoletti and Notarnicola 2000) and conventional scenarios highlight higher environmental loads than organic ones (except for the impact categories associated with land use) (Olivieri et al. 2005a, b; Salomone and Ioppolo 2012; Salomone et al. 2010a);

• When focusing on the olive oil extraction phase (even if the agricultural stage is more significant than the processing one) the processing stage is of primary importance when it comes to groundwater contamination, mainly due to the particular management practice of effluent disposal to evaporation ponds (Avraamides and Fatta 2008). Considering the different olive oil extraction methods and their by-product treatments, the double-pressure system resulted as more effective than single pressure and centrifugation (Nicoletti and Notarnicola 2000), and even with a wider scenario analysis the most eco-compatible production chain is the one that uses continuous two-phase transformation (De Gennaro et al. 2005);

• When focusing on olive mill by-product treatment, significant positive contributions are obtained in terms of environmental credits for avoided production, associated with the use of by-products as fuels or fertilisers, and different examples were analysed in the studies, e.g. olive mill waste water recovery as fertiliser (Testa et al. 2012), energetic exploitation of pomace stone (Cini et al. 2008) and the recovery of olive pits used as fuel (Russo et al. 2008), the co-composting of OWP with manure on fields or co-composting of OMW and OWP with composter machines (Salomone and Ioppolo 2012), etc.

The analysis also revealed interesting points for reflection. The processes identified as those with a greater environmental impact are also those with the least data, such as the production and use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers; therefore, uncertainties and variability remain in the data. Thus, how can a more efficient and environmentally friendly local olive oil production chain be designed and how can LCA be used as a chain-focused management tool?

In order to develop LCA as a useful predictive tool for restructuring supply chains with the aim of improving their environmental performance, the lessons learned allow us to highlight that in this sector research is needed to increase the credibility of the existing LCA data and the priority is the improvement and expansion of databases for these substances; however, the models that estimate their dispersion in water, air and soil must also be simplified. Despite these limitations, this study can help us to understand better how useful the LCA methodology can be in the decision-making process connected to the definition of an environmental chain strategy and it certainly stresses the main gaps in the current knowledge concerning where future research and developments should be concentrated. However, the olive oil chain should not be interpreted as simple olive processing and olive oil production, followed by the problem of disposal and waste management. The whole olive oil chain must include the systems, treatment plants and waste recovery to obtain biomass for energy use, to produce compost and other substances that are useful to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Thus, this sector is multi-product and each option must be properly assessed considering the whole chain from both environmental and economic points of view, and LCA should be used as a starting point for the continuous improvement procedure with regard to the environment, identifying the inputs, processes or phases with the most significant potential impacts and considering measures for their control.