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EuGeos Limited, UK
ADAS, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 28 March 2013
Received in revised form
6 December 2013
Accepted 19 December 2013
Available online 17 January 2014
The environmental effects of seasonal food supply have been explored through a Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) study of raspberries supplied to UK consumers at different times of year. Supply of raspberries at
different times of the year draws on different production systems and locations. Despite that, the results
of this LCA, based on data from individual producers, reveal relatively small differences in impacts for
different times of supply, except in the case of the water footprint measures. LCIA results are very
sensitive to fruit yield. So in this case, yield and agricultural practice appear stronger drivers of the
environmental burden of food production than is time of supply. In such situations a strong focus on
seasonality in sustainable food provisioning is unlikely to deliver large environmental benets. Using
LCA to establish what benets might be available from a more general shift to seasonal food consumption, often advocated as more sustainable, will require a multi-product approach. Such an
approach could take current food consumption patterns or environmental targets as its starting point.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Seasonal
Fruit
Seasonal food
Raspberry
LCA
1. Introduction
As urbanisation progressed in the second half of the 20th Century and the agricultural workforce shrank, so Western European
citizens disengaged from food production, losing their connection
with its seasonal patterns. From the 1960s onwards, seasonal
variation in the availability of certain foods reduced, leading to the
commonly-described position of all-year-round availability for
many foods. Recently, interest in seasonal foods has been resurgent; Dibb et al. (2006) state that two-thirds of people in the UK are
now taking steps to buy seasonally. This trend has various drivers
but e as Dibb et al.s title suggests e some see implications for the
environment in it. In line with this, advice on sustainable diet
often advocates consumption of seasonal food. Seeking additional
evidence relevant to such recommendations, the UKs Department
of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commissioned a
research project exploring the environmental implications of seasonal food purchasing (DEFRA research project FO0412). This paper
reports some ndings of the project, focussing on environmental
implications of seasonal food supply explored through a raspberry
LCA case study.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: chrisf@eugeos.co.uk, c.foster@manchester.ac.uk, chris.foster@
mbs.ac.uk (C. Foster).
0959-6526/$ e see front matter 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.077
270
apples; it is clear from these that the impacts associated with the
different stages of the apple life cycle are of similar order of
magnitude, a situation that may then reasonably be anticipated for
other top-fruit. Differences in post-harvest technology, arising
coincidentally, may therefore outweigh differences driven by the
season of production. In cases where supply at a particular time of
year requires storage, the scale of product loss or degradation
during storage must be accounted for. The degree of geographical
resolution embedded in impact assessment (LCIA) methods (few of
which exist in regionalised form) may also limit the extent to which
LCA can inform about the environmental effects of seasonal variation in food supply when that variation involves production in
different places.
2. Methods
2.1. Scope
The aim of the research was to explore the environmental implications of upstream changes that arise as supply of particular
foodstuffs progresses through the year. Therefore a selection of
individual foods was studied, rather than a sequence of baskets.
Here the raspberry case study is reported to illustrate how environmental impacts vary across the year for one food consumed in
the UK. Clearly at a certain time of year raspberries are in-season
in the UK, at other times they are not. The project considered only
the effect of changing the times of production and supply in the
system as far as delivery to the food retailer. In effect, we equate
(reecting mainstream economics and consumer data) consumption with purchase, and purchase with supply to the retailer. This
embodies a simplication: it is possible that consumers store foods
for extended periods after purchasing them. The environmental
implications of this, if it occurs, were not considered in the LCA; it
would make food consumption less seasonal than statistics
would lead us to believe it is. Some of the volume captured by this
data is supplied to commercial buyers (the foodservice sector or
institutions) rather than nal consumers, of course. This is still
purchase, however, and there seems to be no reason to exclude it.
Fig. 1 shows how UK supply of raspberries changes through the
year in volume and by source (data compiled from UK production2
and import3 statistics with quantity, in tonnes, as the y-axis which
2
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Horticultural Statistics:
www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/foodfarm/landuselivestock/bhs/.
3
HM Revenue & Customs Trade Statistics: https://www.uktradeinfo.com/Pages/
Home.aspx.
is not shown) There is scarcely competition between local production e certainly seasonal according to the consumer-oriented
denition above e and imports, which are seasonal only according to the global denition; rather imports complement local
produce in an overall supply pattern. To gain some insight into the
environmental implications of this supply pattern an LCA of raspberries was conducted. This covered 3 functional units:
A. 1 kg raspberries delivered fresh to a supermarkets retail distribution centre (RDC) in May
B. 1 kg raspberries delivered fresh to a RDC in July
C. 1 kg raspberries delivered frozen to a RDC in November
271
2.2. Boundaries
The product systems incorporated production of fertilisers,
canes, packaging, fuels and all other inputs. Production of material
for polytunnels was included, but other capital equipment was
excluded so that the calculations of global warming potential were
compliant with PAS 2050:2008, which was the most recent version
of that standard at the time the work was carried out. For the
production system in B & C, an additional year of operation without
any crop production was included as an allowance for cane production, for which direct data were unavailable.
2.3. Data
272
4. Discussion
The results in Table 1 represent the progression of the environmental impacts associated with supply of raspberries through
the year. Because food at one time of the year is not, for many
consumers, substitutable for food at another, while it is reasonable
to reect on the changes in LCIA results between one case and
another, the three cases cannot really be compared as alternatives.
The differences between the LCIA results obtained for these
particular cases of raspberry supply at three points in the year are
relatively small, except for the water footprint measures. The fact
that both canes and fruit are subject to long-distance refrigerated
transport is a signicant factor behind the higher acidication and
abiotic depletion values obtained for raspberries delivered fresh in
May (A); for example product transport accounts for 35% of the
acidication potential for A but 18% of the acidication potential for
B. The close similarity between the EIQ values obtained partly results from the use of expert consultation to ll data gaps; results
obtained for strawberries within the same project (for which the
pesticide use data was of higher quality) suggest that differences in
soil sterilant application rates and frequencies can have a signicant inuence on this indicator. It is notable that the weighted
water footprint measure is the one LCIA method applied here
which is sensitive to location and is the one for which the differences between the three cases is largest.
For impact categories other than water, likely (e.g. year-to-year)
variations in fruit yield and cane yield could give rise to variations
in the results obtained for one particular case greater than the
differences between the different cases shown in Table 1.
N2O emissions from horticulture contribute a large proportion
of the GWP: 75% for A and more than 90% for B and C. However, in
this project the calculation of N2O emissions from soil following the
incorporation of crop residues both in the UK or overseas was
highly problematic. The IPCC 2006 method using the tier 1
approach is complex and uses many default values for specic crops
or crop groups. A large number of crops are not represented in the
IPCC method, therefore default data relevant to several of the
products considered in this project e including raspberries e were
not available. Data for another crop product were used as a proxy,
but this introduces a further element of uncertainty.
The production of polyethylene contributes some 25% of the
abiotic depletion potential in A. Tunnels account for the majority of
the polyethylene in this case. While there is some uncertainty about
Table 1
LCIA results, raspberries in the UK at different times of year.
Impact category
Product system
A. Raspberries, fresh
at UK RDC in May
B. Raspberries fresh at
UK RDC in July
C. Raspberries frozen at
UK RDC in November
7.3
2.7
2.7
1.1
0.3
0.01
0.0004
0.01
0.005
7.4
1.3
0.09
1.2
0.3
0.004
0.0001
0.003
0.004
7.7
1.3
0.09
1.2
0.3
0.006
0.0002
0.004
0.004
273
Table 2
Sensitivity analysis results.
Impact category
Product system
A. Raspberries,
fresh at UK
RDC in May
(base)
A1. Raspberries,
fresh at UK
RDC in May,
fruit yield 10%
A2. Raspberries
fresh at UK RDC
in May, planting
material (canes)
yield 30%
B. Raspberries
fresh at UK
RDC in July
C. Raspberries
frozen at UK
RDC in November
7.3
2.7
5.7
Not calculated
6.0
Not calculated
7.4
1.3
6.7
Not calculated
7.7
1.3
7.5
Not calculated
2.7
Not calculated
Not calculated
0.09
Not calculated
0.09
Not calculated
1.1
1.0
1.0
1.2
1.1
1.2
1.2
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.01
0.01
0.01
0.004
0.004
0.006
0.005
0.0004
0.0004
0.0004
0.0001
0.0001
0.0002
0.0002
0.01
0.008
0.009
0.003
0.003
0.004
0.003
0.005
0.004
0.005
0.004
0.003
0.004
0.003
the fate and longevity of the material used for these tunnels in
practice, extending the materials life and recycling it when it is no
longer useable are clearly desirable.
In case C (frozen raspberries supplied in November) no allowance was made for loss or spoilage during cold storage. Such losses
increase the impacts associated with supplied product but no
relevant data for loss rates were available when the work was
conducted. Recent work by WRAP (Terry et al., 2011) provides an
estimate of 2e3% losses of fresh raspberries in packing and in retail
stores, but provides no estimate for losses of packed fruit consigned
to frozen storage. The loss rates found for packing are similar to
those used in this study.
5. Conclusions
An LCA has been completed of a soft fruit supplied in the UK at
three different times of the year. Here we draw some tentative
conclusions based on the results of this LCA.
The impact assessment results obtained show relatively small
shifts as the time of supply progresses through the year, perhaps
surprising in light of the operational differences between the
supply systems. The inuence on environmental impact of the
place of production shows through strongly in the weighted water
footprint. This impact assessment method has, of course, locationsensitivity built into it; it may be that if regionalised methods had
been used for other categories (notably eutrophication), the inuence of place would have shown in those too.
Comparing the results obtained for the different cases with the
results of the sensitivity analysis suggests that, for raspberries at
least, yield and agricultural practice are stronger drivers of the
environmental burden of food production than is time of supply. In
such situations, it seems that a strong focus on seasonality in
sustainable food provisioning is unlikely e by itself e to deliver
large environmental benets.
That conclusion must be recognised as provisional because of the
nature of the LCAs undertaken here e based on particular examples
of production rather than statistically-representative datasets for
production at certain times of the year, employing modelled data for
emissions and LCIA methods without regional sensitivity to explore
4
For a discussion of the co-evolution of consumer expectations and food products, see Foster et al. (2012) or Freidberg (2009).
274
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