Review
A review of life cycle assessment (LCA) on some food products

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Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool that can be used to evaluate the environmental load of a product, process, or activity throughout its life cycle. Today’s LCA users are a mixture of individuals with skills in different disciplines who want to evaluate their products, processes, or activities in a life cycle context. This study attempts to present some of the LCA studies on agricultural and industrial food products, recent advances in LCA and their application on food products. The reviewed literatures indicate that agricultural production is the hotspot in the life cycle of food products and LCA can assist to identify more sustainable options. Due to the recent development of LCA methodologies and dissemination programs by international and local bodies, use of LCA is rapidly increasing in agricultural and industrial food products. A network of information sharing and exchange of experience has expedited the LCA development process. The literatures also suggest that LCA coupled with other approaches provides much more reliable and comprehensive information to environmentally conscious policy makers, producers, and consumers in selecting sustainable products and production processes. Although LCA methodologies have been improved, further international standardization would broaden its practical applications, improve the food security and reduce human health risk.

Introduction

The food industry is one of the world’s largest industrial sectors and hence is a large user of energy. Greenhouse gas emission, which has increased remarkably due to tremendous energy use, has resulted in global warming, perhaps the most serious problem that humankind faces today. Food production, preservation and distribution consume a considerable amount of energy, which contributes to total CO2 emission. Moreover, consumers in developed countries demand safe food of high quality that has been produced with minimal adverse impacts on the environment (Boer, 2002). There is increased awareness that the environmentally conscious consumer of the future will consider ecological and ethical criteria in selecting food products (Andersson et al., 1994). It is thus essential to evaluate the environmental impact and the utilization of resources in food production and distribution systems for sustainable consumption.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool for evaluating environmental effects of a product, process, or activity throughout its life cycle or lifetime, which is known as a ‘from cradle to grave’ analysis. Environmental awareness influences the way in which legislative bodies such as governments will guide the future development of agricultural and industrial food production systems. Although several researchers have compiled LCA studies to emphasize the need for LCA (Foster et al., 2006, Boer, 2002, Ekvall and Finnveden, 2001, Adisa, 1999, Andersson et al., 1994), some recent advances in agricultural LCAs have yet to be reported. Therefore, this study aims to present recent advances in LCA and provide a specific review of LCA in several food products.

Section snippets

LCA methodology

Although the concept of LCA evolved in the 1960s and there have been several efforts to develop LCA methodology since the 1970s, it has received much attention from individuals in environmental science fields since the 1990s. For this concept many names have been used, for instance eco-balancing (Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Japan), resource and environment profile analysis (USA), environmental profiling and cradle-to-grave assessment. The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry

LCA studies on food products

The growing concern about sustainable food production and consumption prompted different research activities on food production and distribution systems including agricultural produce. At the same time, international trade in food products also continues to increase. Predominantly, the LCA methodology has been applied to industrial products and processes. Although most of the life cycle studies carried out so far involve either agricultural production or industrial refining, several LCA studies

Ongoing efforts on LCA

The international LCA community is still struggling with issues related to LCA databases, data collection and data quality goals. A network of information sharing and exchanges of experience has expedited the development process of LCA. Several North American and Western European countries have led these efforts. In addition, researchers of different international organizations are closely involved in the development processes of LCA including the International Organization for Standardization

Discussion

One of the important characteristics of agricultural LCA is the use of multiple functional units. The commonly used functional units are mass of final products (kg), energy or protein content in food products (kJ), area (ha), unit of livestock. Gross profit and meal are also used. Table 2 shows some LCA studies that used multiple functional units. Although the use of LCA in the agro-food industries is rapidly increasing, there are considerable inconsistencies existing among the studies. The

Conclusions

LCA methodologies are very useful to evaluate environmental impacts and food safety of a product or production system. This study revealed that environmental load of a product can be reduced by alternate production, processing, packaging, distribution and consumption patterns. Hence, it improves the food safety and security and might improve international trade. Multiple outputs in many food production systems often make the system complex, and application of LCA on food products requires

Acknowledgement

The authors are indebted to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (No. 18.06581).

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