1. Deliverable 6.3: Environmental sustainability report (LCA)
- Author
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Antón, Assumpció, Montemayor, Erica, Caceres, Rafaela, Johnson, Marion, Schmutz, Ulrich, Andrivon, Didier, De Marchi, Massimo, Løes, Anne-Kristin, Katsoulas, Nikolaos, Sørensen, Claus Grøn, Malinska, Krystyna, Postawa, Przemyslaw, Stachowiak, Tomasz, de Cara, Miguel, Kir, Alev, Oudshoorn, Frank, Cirvilleri, Gabriella, Valleix, Sophie, Antón, Assumpció, Montemayor, Erica, Caceres, Rafaela, Johnson, Marion, Schmutz, Ulrich, Andrivon, Didier, De Marchi, Massimo, Løes, Anne-Kristin, Katsoulas, Nikolaos, Sørensen, Claus Grøn, Malinska, Krystyna, Postawa, Przemyslaw, Stachowiak, Tomasz, de Cara, Miguel, Kir, Alev, Oudshoorn, Frank, Cirvilleri, Gabriella, and Valleix, Sophie
- Abstract
This deliverable corresponds to work conducted in Task 6.3 on Environmental assessment. Environmental assessment is conducted following a life cycle perspective, specifically using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools recommended by the European Commission and the United Nations Environmental Programme in the frame of the Environment Footprint and Life Cycle Initiatives. This tool was selected due to its holistic vision, including both the whole production chain concept and multi criteria environmental indicators, as well as its quantitative, scientific approach to estimating environmental impacts. However, being aware of the limitations of LCA tools in its ability to assess the comprehensive sustainability of organic production systems, the current deliverable must be seen as part of a wider sustainability assessment, complemented by the additional assessments conducted in WP6 (e.g. Response Inducing Sustainability Evaluation (RISE) tool). In addition, it is the ambition of the Organic-PLUS project to contribute to improving the LCA methodology to make it more suitable for organic production systems. Therefore, facing the reality of highly variable practices within agricultural production systems, and that information about alternative inputs will increase over time; it is our ambition with this publication to provide a dynamic and easily adaptable deliverable. This means providing a transparent methodological guideline of the assessments conducted with reference scenarios, and the provision of calculation forms Excel files, which may be easily updated. We aim for a tool which will be useful beyond project completion and may facilitate stakeholder interaction. LCA has been applied in accordance with ISO standards 14040 and 14044 (2006a and b) and consequent amendments (2020 a, b, c). The methodological guideline established in the frame of EF initiative (EU-JRC, 2018) has been followed. Section 2 provides a detailed description of the methodology and models applie
- Published
- 2021