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

Phase 1

In phase 1 all general decisions concerning the making of an LCA is made. The functional unit can for example be 1 kg meat from the farm or 1 kg meat from the supermarket. The system boundaries can for example start at the production of raw materials like fodder used at the farm and end where the meat leaves the store. Goal, purpose and target group define what the LCA should be used for and by whom. Decisions should be made regarding which environmental impact categories should be included in the LCA and how the allocation of input and emissions between products and co-products should be made. The allocation can be economic allocation, mass allocation or system expansion (see later).

 

Figure 10. An LCA on pig production is related to a functional unit e.g. 1 kg meat.