Abstract
As one of the most comprehensive environmental assessment methodologies, life cycle assessment enables evaluation of the environmental impacts of anthropogenic activities along a supply chain. Its implementation raises many scientific questions. In the case of tropical cropping systems, researchers are working to understand and model environmental emissions based on the diversity of environments and systems. They are also focusing on the relationship between emissions and impacts. Cropping system life cycle assessments show that the impact on climate change varies by crop, environment and type of practice. Life cycle assessment can help guide production methods so as to reduce their environmental impacts. But the choices are not always clearcut.
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Notes
- 1.
SETAC: Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, one of the most important international scientific organizations dealing with structural issues of life cycle assessment (Jolliet et al. 2010).
- 2.
In the remainder of this chapter, references to ‘product’ alone will mean ‘product or service’.
- 3.
CO2-eq means CO2 equivalent, i.e. in this case the sum of all GHG emissions weighted by the global warming potential of the various GHGs. Those potentials are the characterization factors in the IPCC linear model; they reflect, in particular, the fact that not all GHGs last the same length of time in the atmosphere, nor do they all react the same with other atmospheric components. Their contributions to the global greenhouse effect are, accordingly, also variable; for example, 1 kg of N2O is roughly equivalent to 298 kg of CO2.
- 4.
The LCAs reviewed covered 14 products: peaches, apples, bananas, oranges, citrus, cocoa, coconuts, kiwis, coffee, grapes, olive oil, jatropha oil, palm oil and sugar cane. Of the 70 LCAs reviewed, 60 % were partial and only addressed global warming or the energy balance.
- 5.
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
- 6.
1.67 kg CO2-eq is equal to the emissions of a car carrying a person for about 11.5 km (Ecoinvent v2.2: 01945 XML).
- 7.
In 2012, flooded rice accounted for some 3 % of the world’s usable arable land http://faostat.fao.org.
- 8.
Irstea: National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture; ELSA (Environmental and Sustainability Life Cycle Assessment) is a research group dedicated to life cycle assessment and industrial ecology as they apply to agrobiological processes www1.montpellier.inra.fr/elsa/.
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Bessou, C. et al. (2016). Life Cycle Assessment to Understand Agriculture-Climate Change Linkages. In: Torquebiau, E. (eds) Climate Change and Agriculture Worldwide. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7462-8_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7462-8_20
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