Globalization, Financial Depth, and Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa

ISSN:0948-3349ISSN:1614-750

Mainstreaming life cycle thinking through a consistent approach to footprints

Over recent years, footprints have emerged as an important means of reporting environmental performance. Some individual footprints have become quite sophisticated in their calculation procedures. However, as an overallclass of environmental metrics they have been poorly defined, having a variety of conceptual foundations and an unclear relationship to LCA. The variety and sometimes contradictory approaches to quantification have also led to confusing and contradictory messages in the marketplace which have undermined their acceptance by industry and governments.In response, a task force operating under the auspices of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative project on environmental Life Cycle Impact Assessment has been working to develop generic guidance for developers of footprint metrics. The initial work involved forming a consensual position on the difference between footprints and existing LCA impact category indicators. In short, footprints are deemed to have a primary orientation toward society and nontechnical stakeholders and report only on selected topics of concern. On the other hand, LCA impact category indicators have a primary orientation toward technical stakeholders and report in relation to a larger framework designed for comprehensive evaluation of environmental performance and trade-offs. The task force has also developed a universal footprint definition. In parallel to Area of Protection, we introduce Area of Concern. In the same way that LCA uses impact category indicators to assess impacts that follow a common cause-effect pathway toward Areas of rotection, ootprint metrics address Areas of Concern. The critical difference is that Areas of Concern are defined by the interests of stakeholders in society rather than the LCA community. In addition, Areas of Concern are stand-alone and not part of a framework intended for comprehensive environmental performance assessment. Accordingly, footprints are universally defined as metrics used to report life cycle assessment results addressing an Area of Concern

Making sense of the minefield of footprint indicators

In recent years, footprint indicators have emerged as a popular mode of reporting environmental performance. The prospect is that these simplified metrics will guide investors, businesses, public sector policymakers and even consumers of everyday goods and services in making decisions which lead to better environmental outcomes. However, without a common “DNA”, the ever expanding lexicon of footprints lacks coherence and may even report contradictory results for the same subject matter.(1) The danger is that this will ultimately lead to policy confusion and general mistrust of all environmental disclosures. Footprints are especially interesting metrics because they seek to express the environmental performance of products and organizations from a life cycle perspective. The life cycle perspective is important to avoid misleading claims based only on a selected life cycle stage. For example, the water used to manufacture beverages may be important, but if a beverage includes sugar, irrigation water used to cultivate sugar cane could be a greater concern. The focus on environmental performance distinguishes footprints from technical efficiency measures, such as energy use efficiency or water use efficiency, which typically only make sense when applied to a single life cycle stage as they lack local environmental context. However, unlike technical efficiency, which can usually be accurately measured and verified, footprint indicators, with their wider view of environmental performance, are usually calculated using models which can differ in scope, complexity and model parameter settings. Despite the noble intention of using footprints to evaluate and report environmental performance, the potential inconsistency between different approaches acts as a deterrent to use in many public policymaking and business contexts and can lead to confusing and contradictory messages in the marketplace

An environmentally-based systems approach to sustainability analyses of organic fruit production systems in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sustainable Agricultural Systems at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

An environmentally-based systems approach to sustainability analyses of organic fruit production systems in New Zealand. This research introduces an approach for the assessment of the sustainability of farming systems. It is based on the premises that sustainability has an environmental bottom line and that there is very limited substitutability between natural capital and other forms of capital. Sustainability assessment is undertaken through analyses of energy and material flows of the system and their impacts on the environment. The proposed sustainability assessment approach is based on two high level criteria for sustainability: efficient use of energy and non-degradation of the environment from energy and material use. Sustainability assessment of organic orchard systems in New Zealand was undertaken to demonstrate this approach. Five indicators which address the two criteria for the sustainability of the orchard systems are the energy ratio, the CO2 ratio, changes in the soil carbon level, nutrient balances, and the leaching of nitrogen. Organic kiwifruit and organic apple systems are modelled based on their key energy and material flows and their interactions with the natural environment. The energy and material flows are converted into appropriate energy and matter equivalents based on coefficients taken from the published literature. Sustainability indicators are estimated over one growing season using two computer modelling tools, Overseer® and Stella®, in a life cycle approach. Sustainability assessment of the organic orchard systems suggests that the approach is useful for evaluating energy use and key environmental impacts that occur in soil, water and atmosphere. The results indicate that the model organic orchard systems are sustainable in terms of energy use and are a net sink of CO2-equivalent emissions. The implication of this result is that organic orchard systems potentially could trade carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. The findings also suggest that the sustainability assessment approach is capable of identifying the trade-offs within the sustainability indicators associated with particular management practices. Further research to improve and validate the proposed approach is essential, before it can be practically used for decision making at the orchard level and for policy making at the national level

Assessing carbon, water and land use footprints for beef cattle production in Southern Australia

For agri-food products, concurrent assessment of GHG emissions, water use impacts and land use is necessary to communicate meaningfully about environmental performance and to avoid potential negative consequences of narrowly focussed environmental improvement initiatives, such as carbon footprint reduction. In this study, land use footprints were calculated for six diverse beef cattle production systems in southern Australia (cradle to farm gate) using net primary productivity of potential biomass (NPP0) as a means of describing the intrinsic productive capability of land. The results per kg live weight, ranging from 86 to 172 m2.yr-e (where 1 m2.yr-e represents 1 m2 of land occupation for 1 year at the global average NPP0) represent between 1.3 and 2.7% of an average global citizen’s annual land use footprint, and highlight the importance of land use in cattle production. These results were approximately 10 and 1000 times the normalised carbon and water footprint results. While NPP0 can be used to improve land use assessment beyond a simple measure of land area, further development of the land use footprint indicator is recommended

Farmers value on-farm ecosystem services as important, but what are the impediments to participation in PES schemes?

Optimal participation in market-based instruments such as PES (payment for ecosystem services) schemes is a necessary precondition for achieving large scale cost-effective conservation goals from agricultural landscapes. However farmers' willingness to participate in voluntary conservation programmes is influenced by psychological, financial and social factors and these need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In this research farmers' values towards on-farm ecosystem services, motivations and perceived impediments to participation in conservation programmes are identified in two local land services regions in Australia using surveys. Results indicated that irrespective of demographics such as age, gender, years farmed, area owned and annual gross farm income, farmers valued ecosystem services important for future sustainability. Non-financial motivations had significant associations with farmer's perceptions regarding attitudes and values towards the environment and participation in conservation-related programmes. Farmer factors such as lack of awareness and unavailability of adequate information were correlated with non-participation in conservation-based programmes. In the current political context, government uncertainty regarding schemes especially around carbon sequestration and reduction was the most frequently cited impediment that could deter participation. Future research that explores willingness of farmers towards participation in various types of PES programmes developed around carbon reduction, water quality provision and biodiversity conservation, and, duration of the contract and payment levels that are attractive to the farmers will provide insights for developing farmer-friendly PES schemes in the regio

Modelling sustainability at the farming system level : an approach based on insights from thermodynamics

Sustainability has an environmental bottom line and is underpinned by the laws of thermodynamics. Drawing on the insights from the laws of thermodynamics, the modelling approach at the farming system level was based on two high level criteria for sustainability: efficient use of energy and non-degradation of the environment from energy and material use. Indicators, such as the energy ratio, carbon ratio, soil carbon level, nutrient balances and leaching of N, which are consistent with the two sustainability criteria were identified for an organic orchard system. Two computer modelling tools (Stella® and Overseer®) were used to estimate sustainability indicators using primary and published data. Sustainability modelling of the organic orchard systems in New Zealand suggests that the approach is useful for evaluating energy efficiency and key environmental impacts that occur in soil, water and atmosphere. The findings also suggest that the model is capable of guiding management decisions to move towards more sustainable practices. Further research to improve and validate the proposed approach is essential before it can be used for decision-making at the orchard level and for policy-making at the national level

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to assess water use in tomato production

In response to concerns about global water scarcity and food security, water footprints have emerged as one important indicator of sustainable agriculture. In this paper the water footprints of two greenhouse tomato production systems are presented which form part of a wider study on sustainable food production using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The water footprints, which offer a quantitative measure of the way a production system contributes to the problem of physical water scarcity, were calculated using a recently developed LCA-based calculation method, taking into account the local water stress where production occurred. For greenhouses located in Sydney and Guyra (NSW northern tablelands), the world normalised water footprints of market tomatoes were 35 and 3 L H2Oe per kg fresh weight respectively. In comparison, the water-use efficiency of these systems was 50 L (Sydney) and 39 L (Guyra) per kg. Although water-use efficiency is popular amongst agronomists and is important for benchmarking local resource-use efficiency, it does not address the wider question of sustainable freshwater use. Water footprint on the other hand is capable of sending signals on the way the agricultural production system limits the availability of freshwater for the environment and/or other human uses. Metrics such as water footprint offer a useful and additional perspective for moving towards environmental sustainability

Exploring hotspots in the carbon footprint and energy use profiles of tomatoes grown for the Sydney market

One of the key issues with the consumption of horticultural products is the depletion of fossil resources and greenhouse gas emissions along the production and supply chain. Australia's horticultural sector contributes about 6% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Although this figure appears to be smaller as compared to other sectors within agriculture, agricultural sector as a whole may come under cIoser government scrutiny in the future to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (Australian Government, 2010). It is estimated that the vegetable industry contributes close to 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions within horticulture (Deuter, 2008), In response to national and international initiatives on food labelling, vegetable products may be required to identify their energy and carbon footprints as a way to reduce some of the environmental impacts. This is where Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool could be applied to estimate key environmental impacts of agri-food products. The key feature of LCA is that it considers the system-wide environmental impacts and not just those occurring at the farm. LCA enables to assess the trade-offs between various environmental impacts and in this way helps to guide informed decision making at the individual and policy level. We apply LCA to study two key environmental impacts namely the global warming and the resource depletion potential from tomato production systems. We identify environmental hotspots in carbon and energy footprints by assessing the growing phase of tomato production and the key operations that influence the results. We have chosen tomato as a case study because it is an important vegetable following potato and there are different pathways (example greenhouse vs field production) in which fresh tomato reaches the Sydney consumer. The results from this research along with other environmental considerations such as impacts of freshwater scarcity will help provide guidance in the design of more sustainable vegetable production practices for the Sydney region