Representing crop rotations in life cycle assessment: a review of legume LCA studies

There is an imperative to accurately assess the environmental sustainability of crop system interventions in the context of food security and climate change. Previous studies have indicated that the incorporation of legumes into cereal rotations could reduce overall environmental burdens from cropping systems. However, most LCA studies focus on individual crops and miss environmental consequences of inter-annual crop sequence and nutrient cycling effects. This review investigates state-of-the-art representation of inter-crop rotation effects within legume LCA studies

Hand hygiene with hand sanitizer versus handwashing: what are the planetary health consequences?

In order to reduce the transmission of pathogens, and COVID-19, WHO and NHS England recommend hand washing (HW) and/or the use of hand sanitizer (HS). The planetary health consequences of these different methods of hand hygiene have not been quantified. A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out to compare the environmental impact of the UK population practising increased levels of hand hygiene during the COVID-19 pandemic for 1 year. Washing hands with soap and water was compared to using hand sanitizer (both ethanol and isopropanol based sanitizers were studied). The isopropanol-based HS had the lowest environmental impact in 14 out of the 16 impact categories used in this study. For climate change, hand hygiene using isopropanol HS produced the equivalent of 1060 million kg CO2, compared to 1460 million for ethanol HS, 2300 million for bar soap HW, and 4240 million for liquid soap HW. For both the ethanol and isopropanol HS, the active ingredient was the greatest overall contributing factor to the environmental impact (83.24% and 68.68% respectively). For HW with liquid soap and bar soap, there were additional contributing factors other than the soap itself: for example tap water use (28.12% and 48.68% respectively) and the laundering of a hand towel to dry the hands (10.17% and 17.92% respectively). All forms of hand hygiene have an environmental cost, and this needs to be weighed up against the health benefits of preventing disease transmission. When comparing hand sanitizers to handwashing with soap and water, this study found that using isopropanol based hand sanitizer is better for planetary health. However, no method of hand hygiene was ideal; isopropanol had a greater fossil fuel resource use than ethanol based hand sanitizer. More research is needed to find hand hygiene sources which do not diminish planetary health, and environmental impact is a consideration for public health campaigns around hand hygiene

Just the tonic! Legume biorefining for alcohol has the potential to reduce Europe’s protein deficit and mitigate climate change

Industrialised agriculture is heavily reliant upon synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and imported protein feeds, posing environmental and food security challenges. Increasing the cultivation of leguminous crops that biologically fix nitrogen and provide high protein feed and food could help to address these challenges. We report on the innovative use of an important leguminous crop, pea (Pisum sativum L.), as a source of starch for alcohol (gin) production, yielding protein-rich animal feed as a co-product. We undertook life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare the environmental footprint of 1 L of packaged gin produced from either 1.43 kg of wheat grain or 2.42 kg of peas via fermentation and distillation into neutral spirit. Allocated environmental footprints for pea-gin were smaller than for wheat-gin across 12 of 14 environmental impact categories considered. Global warming, resource depletion, human toxicity, acidification and terrestrial eutrophication footprints were, respectively, 12%, 15%, 15%, 48% and 68% smaller, but direct land occupation was 112% greater, for pea-gin versus wheat-gin. Expansion of LCA boundaries indicated that co-products arising from the production of 1 L of wheat- or pea-gin could substitute up to 0.33 or 0.66 kg soybean animal feed, respectively, mitigating considerable greenhouse gas emissions associated with land clearing, cultivation, processing and transport of such feed. For pea-gin, this mitigation effect exceeds emissions from gin production and packaging, so that each L of bottled pea gin avoids 2.2 kg CO2 eq. There is great potential to scale the use of legume starches in production of alcoholic beverages and biofuels, reducing dependence on Latin American soybean associated with deforestation and offering considerable global mitigation potential in terms of climate change and nutrient leakage — estimated at circa 439 Tg CO2 eq. and 8.45 Tg N eq. annually

Data for life cycle assessment of legume biorefining for alcohol

Benchmarking the environmental sustainability of alcohol produced from legume starch against alcohol produced from cereal grains requires considering of crop production, nutrient cycling and use of protein-rich co-products via life cycle assessment. This article describes the mass balance flows behind the life cycle inventories for gin produced from wheat and peas (Pisum sativum L.) in an associated article summarising the environmental footprints of wheat- and pea-gin [1], and also presents detailed supplementary results. Activity data were collected from interviews with actors along the entire gin value chain including a distillery manager and ingredient and packaging suppliers. Important fertiliserand animal-feed substitution effects of co-product use were derived using detailed information and models on nutrient flows and animal feed composition, along with linear optimisation modelling. Secondary data on environmental burdens of specific materials and processes were obtained from the Ecoinvent v3.4 life cycle assessment database. This article provides a basis for further quantitative evaluation of the environmental sustainability of legume-alcohol value chains

Environmental impacts of Scottish faba bean-based beer in an integrated beer and animal feed value chain

Beer is one of themost popular drinks globally and productionmethods clearly need to becomemore sustainable. The brewing of legume grains could contribute to improved sustainability through encouraging the diversification of cropped systems and by providing more nutritious local co-products as animal feed. The aim of this studywas to assess the potential environmental effect of partially substituting malted barley with grain legumes as an option to mitigate the environmental impact of beer. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was performed to compare a novel Scottish beer produced with malted barley and UK-grown faba beans with a traditional malted barley beer. Weconsidered beer production as part of amulti-functional beer and animal feed value chain, where coproducts are used as a high-protein UK-grown animal feed. The environmental performances of the different beers were highly dependent on the system boundaries adopted. The simple attributional LCA indicated that a barley-bean beer could offer environmental savingswhen alcohol yields are optimised, with environmental burdens that were significantly smaller than those of the barley beer across 6 categories. When boundarieswere expanded to include both feed substitution and agricultural rotations, the barley-bean beer with current alcohol yields outperformed the barley beer across 8 impact categories, with a 15 %-17 % smaller climate change burden, mainly due to higher feed substitution achieved froma larger volumeof brewing co-productswith higher protein concentrations. Therefore, brewers should consider the use of legumes in their brewing recipes to lower their environmental footprint, increasing the availability of more nutritious beer co-products as a local source of animal feed, and diversifying cropping systems while adding novelty to their product range. Different boundaries settings and scenarios should be assessed in a beer LCA, and entire cropping rotations should be integrated to capture a more accurate picture of the agricultural stage.(c) 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers

Substituting wheat with chickpea flour in pasta production delivers more nutrition at a lower environmental cost

The modern food system is characterised by 1) unsustainable agricultural practices, heavily dependent on agrochemical inputs and leaking large amounts of reactive nitrogen (N) whilst degrading soils, and 2) the consumption of energy-rich but nutrient-poor foods, contributing to non-communicable diseases related to malnutrition. Substituting cereals with low-input, protein- and fibre-rich legumes in the production of mainstream foods offers a promising solution to both issues. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a leguminous crop that can be grown with little or no synthetic N fertiliser. We performed life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare the environmental footprint of pasta made from chickpeas with conventional pasta made from durum wheat (Triticum durum) from cradle to fork. Two functional units were used, an 80g serving of pasta, and a Nutrient Density Unit (NDU). Environmental burdens per serving were smaller for chickpea pasta across at least 10 of the 16 impact categories evaluated. Global warming, resource use minerals and metals, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, and terrestrial eutrophication burdens were smaller than those of durum wheat pasta by up to 45%, 55%, 50%, 86%, and 76%, respectively. Cooked chickpea pasta contains 1.5 more protein, 3.2 times more fibre and 8 times more essential fatty acids than cooked durum wheat pasta per kcal energy content. Thus, the environmental advantage of chickpea pasta extended to 15 of the 16 impact categories when footprints were compared per unit of nutrition. Global warming, resource use and eutrophication burdens per NDU were 79–95% smaller for chickpea pasta than for durum wheat pasta. The one major trade-off was land use, where chickpea pasta had a burden 200% higher per serving, or 17% higher per NDU, than wheat pasta. We conclude that there is high potential to simultaneously improve the environmental sustainability and nutritional quality of food chains through simple substitution of cereals with legumes in staple foods such as pasta. Breeding and agronomic management improvements for legumes could reduce the yield gap with cereals, mitigating the land use penalty. Meanwhile, the higher protein content of chickpea pasta could contribute towards wider environmental benefits via animal protein substitution in diets, and merits further investigation. Consumers who look for the traditional taste and texture of wheat pasta can achieve these aspects by cooking the chickpea pasta al dente and combining it with a typical pasta sauce, which will hide its subtle nutty taste.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Integration of environment and nutrition in life cycle assessment of food items: opportunities and challenges

This report is the outcome of a consensus-building project to agree on best practices for environmental and nutritional Life Cycle Assessment (nLCA) methodology, and identify future research needs. The project involved 30 nutritional and environmental LCA researchers from 18 countries. It focused on the assessment of food items (as opposed to meals or diets).Best practice recommendations were developed to address the intended purpose of an LCA study and related modeling approach, choice of an appropriate functional unit, assessment of nutritional value, and reporting nLCA results. An nLCA study should report the quantities of as many essential nutrients as possible and aim to provide information on the nutritional quality and/or health impacts in addition to nutrient quantities. Outstanding issues requiring further research attention include: defining a minimum number of nutrients to be considered in an nLCA study; treatment of nutrients to limit; use of nutrient indexes; further development of Impact Assessment methods; representation of nutritional changes that may occur during subsequent distribution and food preparation in cradle-to-gate nLCA studies; and communication of data uncertainty and variability. More data are required for different regions (particularly developing countries); for the processing, distribution, retail, and consumption life cycle stages; and for food loss and waste. Finally, there is a need to extend nLCA methodology for the assessment of meals and diets, to consider further how to account for the multi-functionality of food in a sustainability framework, and to set nLCA studies within the context of environmental limits.These results provide a robust basis for improving nLCA methodology and applying it to identify solutions that minimize the trade-offs between nourishing populations and safeguarding the environment

The life cycle analysis of a dental examination : Quantifying the environmental burden of an examination in a hypothetical dental practice

OBJECTIVES: Global sustainability is considered the number one health concern facing our planet. Dental care is currently not provided in a sustainable way. This study aims to quantify the potential environmental burden of an examination in a hypothetical dental practice and identify major contributors to environmental harm. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A life cycle analysis was performed for the life cycle of an examination of one patient in a hypothetical dental practice. The equipment and products analysed were those available at the Faculty of Dentistry, Malmö University. The Ecoinvent version 3.5 database and the life cycle assessment software tool OpenLCA version 1.10 were chosen for this study. RESULTS: Normalized results indicate that the impact categories to which the modelled examination most significantly contributes are water scarcity, freshwater eutrophication and human toxicity (cancer effects). The major contributors or hotspots relating to the environmental harm of an examination procedure are soaps and detergents, disposable bibs, surface disinfection, stainless-steel instruments, clothing, water use and wastewater. CONCLUSION: Normalized results indicate that the potential environmental impact of an examination compared to one individual's impact per year is minimal. Considering the potential number of dental examinations and other dental procedures performed every year puts the findings in another perspective. This paper touches on some of the ways that the environmental burden of an examination could be reduced. Small changes to everyday practice, such as always making sure the dishwasher and washing machines are full when turned on, using less environmentally damaging soaps, more sustainable clothing alternatives and using necessary instruments could significantly reduce dentistry's environmental impact. Changes in materials and practice may result in potential trade-offs. Research would need to be carried out comparing the environmental burden of any alternatives. We hope in the near future that there will be more evidence relating to products used within dental care settings, potential trade-offs and dentistry's environmental burden

Environmental sustainability in endodontics. A life cycle assessment (LCA) of a root canal treatment procedure

BACKGROUND: To analyse via life cycle analysis (LCA) the global resource use and environmental output of the endodontic procedure. METHODOLOGY: An LCA was conducted to measure the life cycle of a standard/routine two-visit RCT. The LCA was conducted according to the International Organization of Standardization guidelines; ISO 14040:2006. All clinical elements of an endodontic treatment (RCT) were input into OpenLCA software using process and flows from the ecoinvent database. Travel to and from the dental clinic was not included. Environmental outputs included abiotic depletion, acidification, freshwater ecotoxicity/eutrophication, human toxicity, cancer/non cancer effects, ionizing radiation, global warming, marine eutrophication, ozone depletion, photochemical ozone formation and terrestrial eutrophication. RESULTS: An RCT procedure contributes 4.9 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) emissions. This is the equivalent of a 30 km drive in a small car. The main 5 contributors were dental clothing followed by surface disinfection (isopropanol), disposable bib (paper and plastic), single-use stainless steel instruments and electricity use. Although this LCA has illustrated the effect endodontic treatment has on the environment, there are a number of limitations that may influence the validity of the results. CONCLUSIONS: The endodontic team need to consider how they can reduce the environmental burden of endodontic care. One immediate area of focus might be to consider alternatives to isopropyl alcohol, and look at paper, single use instrument and electricity use. Longer term, research into environmentally-friendly medicaments should continue to investigate the replacement of current cytotoxic gold standards with possible natural alternatives. Minimally invasive regenerative endodontics techniques designed to stimulate repair or regeneration of damaged pulp tissue may also be one way of improving the environmental impact of an RCT

Incorporating sustainability into assessment of oral health interventions

Prior to 1966, consumers purchased food items with very little (if any) nutritional labels. Now, nutritional labelling is an integral part of informed consumer choice. This paper advocates for a similar approach for healthcare-related products, using the toothbrush as an example, with the need to quantify and publish data on their clinical efficacy and environmental impact. In this paper, we consider different manufacturing models and measure the environmental impact (carbon footprint) and also the human health impact (disability-adjusted life years [DALYs]) for the most commonly used oral health product: the toothbrush