Life Cycle Assessment

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   1. Objectives
   2. Learning goals
   3. Teacher page
2. Course content: Life cycle assessment (LCA) of pork chains
   1. What are the environmental impact of food production?
   2. Global warming
   3. GWP of different foods
   4. Nutrient enrichment (eutrophication)
   5. Acidification
3. How to access environmental impact of pork?
   1. LCA of 1 kg Danish Pork
   2. What is included in a LCA?
   3. Phase 1
   4. Phase 2
   5. Phase 3
   6. Phase 4
   7. System expansion and allocation
4. LCA for different production Systems
   1. The Danish standard system
   2. The Danish organic system
   3. The French standard system
   4. The Alternative French system: Porc Basque
   5. Summary of performance and LCA in the four systems
5. Completion
   1. Comments
   2. Self-assessment
   3. Key messages
   4. Further reading and references
   5. Evaluation
   6. Acknowledgement

What are the environmental impact of food production?

Food production affects the environment in several ways. Below figure gives an illustration on some important environmental consequences that are directly or indirectly affected by the production of pork.

Figure 1. Some examples of the impact of pork production on the environment

The examples of impacts in Figure 1 are a result of the emission of different substances during the production phase. These impacts mentioned are called 'impact categories'. Each impact category is influences by the emission of several substances. Within agriculture and food production some important emissions are:

• Carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuel for energy production (CO₂)
• Nitrogen leaching from agricultural land (NO₃)
• Phosphorous leaching from agricultural land (PO₄^-)
• Ammonia volatilization from manure (NH₃^-)
• Methane emission from enteric fermentation and handling of manure (CH₄)
• Laughing gas emission related to decomposition of nitrogen (N₂O)
• Sulphur dioxide from fossil energy use (SO₂)

What impact categories do you think is affected by which emissions?