Application of PestLCI model to site-specific soil and climate conditions: the case of maize production in Northern Italy

The calculation of emissions from the use of pesticides is a critical issue in LCA studies of agrifood products and only occasionally discussed in details in literature studies. The objective of this study is to assess the results of the application of PestLCI 2.0 model to the production of maize in Northern Italy using site-specific soil and climate data, which were added for this purpose in PestLCI database. In this way, the application of the tool and its database were tailored to that area. Moreover, the results were compared with those obtained assuming maize cultivation on other soil typologies in the surrounding areas. Results show that soil variation scarcely affects the emissions to air and surface water are whereas it affects significantly the emissions to groundwater. Finally, some features of PestLCI were highlighted and comments for a further improvement of the model were provided

Organisational LCA for supporting environmental management towards sustainability of production patterns: the case of agricultural machinery

This paper presents and discusses the applicability and the main challenges of the methodology Organisational LCA to an organisation in the sector of agricultural equipment. The main methodological issues related to the modelling of end of life are discussed, together with the possible sinergies and complementarities with the ISO 14001:2015.The O-LCA has proven to be a very useful and complete approach for an organisation, and contributing to make a step towards Sustainable Development Goals, namely \u201cSustainable Production and Consumption Patterns\u201d. By looking both at the product portfolio and at the activities, it provides a global view on the organisation and allows identifying the most effective and efficient interventions to optimise the environmental performances. It is close to the way the organisations are used to deal with the environmental management and, as such, the O-LCA could represent the analytical tools within the already existing management schemes

PestLCI 2.0 sensitivity to soil variations for the evaluation of pesticide distribution in Life Cycle Assessment studies

Pesticides are commonly applied in conventional agricultural systems, but they can lead to serious environmental contamination. The calculation of on-field pesticide emissions in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies is challenging, because of the difficulty in the calculation of the fate of pesticides and, therefore, several literature approaches based on different dispersion models have been developed. PestLCI 2.0 model can provide simultaneous assessment of the emission fractions of a pesticide to air, surface water and groundwater based on many parameters. The goal of this study is to exploit the extent of PestLCI 2.0 sensitivity to soil variations, with the ultimate goal of increasing the robustness of the modelling of pesticide emissions in LCA studies. The model was applied to maize cultivation in an experimental farm in Northern Italy, considering three tests, which evaluated the distribution of pesticides among environmental compartments obtained considering different soil types. Results show that small variations in soil characteristics lead to great variation of PestLCI 2.0, with a significance that depends on the type of environmental compartment. The compartmentmost affected by soil variationswas groundwater, whereas surface waters were dominated by meteorological conditions, pesticides' physical and chemical properties and wind drift, which are independent from soil characteristics. Therefore, the use of specific soil data in PestLCI 2.0 results in the availability of a comprehensive set of emission data in the different compartments,which represents a relevant input for the inventory phase of LCA studies and can increase their robustness.Nevertheless, PestLCI 2.0 requires a great effort for the data collection and a specific expertise in soil science for interpreting the results. Moreover, characterization factors for pesticide groundwater emissions should be developed, in order to exploit these detailed results in the impact assessment phase, Finally, the study provides further insights into future improvement of PestLCI 2.0

Pesticide emissions in the Environmental Product Footprint \u2013 Lessons learnt from refined sugar from sugar beet

The choice of models to estimate emissions from pesticide use represents a key methological aspect but to date a common agreement in the scientific community has not been achieved yet. This paper discusses the application of the PestLCI2.0 model to the case study of refined sugar from sugar beets, evaluating its feasibility and robustness, and considering the main criticalities at the level of both inventory and impact assessment. The study points out that, despite the non-homogeneous coverage of the pesticide emissions and of their effects, their inclusion in the study is of paramount important. We suggest favouring completeness over precision in the study, as key aspect for operationalizing the materiality principle fostered by PEF

Pesticide emissions in the Environmental Product Footprint – Lessons learnt from refined sugar from sugar beet

The choice of models to estimate emissions from pesticide use represents a key methological aspect but to date a common agreement in the scientific community has not been achieved yet. This paper discusses the application of the PestLCI2.0 model to the case study of refined sugar from sugar beets, evaluating its feasibility and robustness, and considering the main criticalities at the level of both inventory and impact assessment. The study points out that, despite the non-homogeneous coverage of the pesticide emissions and of their effects, their inclusion in the study is of paramount important. We suggest favouring completeness over precision in the study, as key aspect for operationalizing the materiality principle fostered by PEF