Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8

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Journal of Environmental Management

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Review

An evaluation of life cycle assessment of European milk production

Ming-Jia Yan a, *, James Humphreys b, Nicholas M. Holden a
a
UCD Biosystem Engineering, School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, University College Dublin, Ireland
b
Moorepark Dairy Production Research Centre, Teagasc, Fermoy, Co Cork, Ireland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a method regulated by ISO that conveys the environmental impact of
Received 9 February 2010 products. LCA studies of the same product should be comparable to benefit environmental policy
Received in revised form making. LCA of milk production has evaluated environmental issues such as greenhouse gas emissions,
17 September 2010
resource utilisation and land use change. Thirteen LCA studies of European milk production were ana-
Accepted 8 October 2010
Available online xxx
lysed for comparability, and direct comparison was difficult due to technical issues, arbitrary choices and
inconsistent assumptions. The strengths and weaknesses of LCA for evaluating an agricultural system are
identified and improvements for comparability of future studies are also considered. Future LCA of milk
Keywords:
Life cycle assessment
production should ensure that: (1) the production system is appropriately characterized according to the
Milk production goal of study; (2) a clear description of the system boundary and allocation procedures is provided
Europe according to ISO standards; (3) a common functional unit, probably Energy Corrected Milk, should be
used or assumed fat and protein content presented to enable comparisons; (4) where appropriate, site-
specific emission factors and characterization factors should be used in environmental hotspots (e.g.
manure management, spreading of synthetic fertilzier, production of purchased feed), and phosphorous
loss should be better addressed; (5) a range of impact categories including climate change, energy use,
land use, acidification and eutrophication should be used to assess pollution swapping, all of which are
subject to national or regional directives; perhaps in the future biodiversity should also be included; and
(6) the sensitivity to choices of methods and uncertainty of final results should be evaluated.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
There is increased global demand for dairy products despite
bovine milk production being criticised for its environmental
impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions (Johnson and Johnson,
1995), eutrophication (Di and Cameron, 2002) and soil degrada-
tion (Greenwood and McKenzie, 2001). Milk production systems
vary across Europe, ranging from lowland to mountain and from
extensive to intensive (European Commission, 2000). Increased
intensification (Van Vuuren and Van den Pol-van Dasselaar, 2006)
has exacerbated environmental impacts (European Commission,
2000). Policy planning requires rigorously evaluated information
to ensure future milk production is sustainable.
Across Europe, legislative and regulatory controls are used to
ensure good farming practices (e.g. European Council, 1991). A
range of tools have been deployed to evaluate the environmental
impact of agriculture and can be classified by focus of assessment
and temporal/spatial scales (Table 1). Most tools focus on practice
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mingjia.yan@ucd.ie (M.-J. Yan).
(farm, land area, performance of the system), while Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) is the only method that by definition evaluates
production in terms of relative impact per unit product.
LCA is an assessment tool that “addresses the environmental
aspects and potential environmental impacts throughout a prod-
uct’s life cycle from raw material acquisition through production,
use, end-of-life treatment, recycling and final disposal, i.e. cradle-
to-grave” (ISO, 2006a). In recent years, researchers from European
countries where animal husbandry is important (e.g. France,
Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and UK) have applied
LCA to milk production in response to environmental impact
concerns (Table 2). The deployment of LCA represents a shift from
pollution prevention and gate-to-gate concepts to a view that
incorporates the supply chain as well as downstream processes
(Hunkeler and Rebitzer, 2005).
To improve comparability the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) developed ISO 14040 (ISO, 2006a). Ideally,
LCA can assess all processes during the life cycle of a product.
However, data acquisition for LCA can be problematic and time-
consuming (Finnveden et al., 2009). Economic issues are seldom
considered but Life Cycle Costing (Rebitzer and Seuring, 2003) and

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2 M.-J. Yan et al. / Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8

Table 1
Examples of environmental impact assessment method (summarized from Halberg et al., 2005; Payraudeau and van der Werf, 2005; Thomassen and de Boer, 2005; Van der
Werf et al., 2007; Van der Werf and Petit, 2002).

Focus of methods Abbreviationsa Temporal scales Spatial scalesb Economic objectives

Local Regional Global

Product-based LCA Product lifetime þ/0 þ þ 0
Practice-based Resource allocation MAS Year þ þ 0 þ
Optimization MLP Year þ þ þ/0 0
Risk analysis EIA Year þ þ þ/0 þ
Inputeoutput accounting EMA Year þ þ þ/0 0
AEI Year þ þ þ 0
Population & consumption EF Year þ þ þ 0
National flux IPCC Year þ/0 þ 0 0
a
LCA ¼ Life Cycle Assessment, MAS ¼ Multi Agent System, MLP ¼ Multiple Linear Programming, EIA ¼ Environmental Impact Assessment, EMA ¼ Environmental
Management for Agriculture, AEI ¼ Agro-ecological Indicators, EF ¼ Ecological Footprint, IPCC ¼ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
b
Symbols indicate the extent to which an effect is taken into account. þ Effect is considered; þ/0 Effect is considered to a minor degree; 0 Effect is not considered.

Social LCA (UNEP, 2009) might in the future contribute to sustain-
ability assessment together with environmental aspects (Hunkeler
and Rebitzer, 2005).
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the comparability of European
milk production LCAs up to the farm gate. The paper is restricted in
scope to peer-reviewed LCA studies where the authors claimed to
have used ISO methodologies (ISO, 2006a). Findings are discussed in
relation to identified limitations, new developments and possible
future research of LCA.
was to collect data describing a particular production system in
a region or country for future comparison purposes (ES12), or to
compare different methods of handling co-products (SE11).
3.1.2. Scope
The scope includes the production system, the functional unit
(FU), the system boundary, allocation procedures and any other
relevant factors (ISO, 2006a). The difficulties regarding the scope
for comparison of LCAs are considered as follows.

2. Methods 3.1.3. Production system

LCA has a four-stage procedure: goal and scope definition, life
cycle inventory (LCI), life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and
interpretation (ISO, 2006a). In the goal and scope phase, a functional
unit (FU, to which all inputs and outputs are related), system
boundary (containing the unit processes of the system) and allo-
cation procedures (partitioning of inputs and outputs) are defined,
depending on the subject and intended use of the study. For the LCI,
all input and output processes are defined, quantified and summa-
rized. The LCI is linked to environmental impact categories and
indicators by the LCIA, and interpreted relative to the FU (ISO,
2006a). To evaluate the comparability of European milk LCAs, thir-
teen European milk LCA studies published between 2000 and 2009
were considered from: Finland (FI), France (FR), Germany (DE),
Ireland (IE), The Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Spain (ES) and
Sweden (SE) (Table 2). Of these, seven evaluated production mode
(organic vs. non-organic), three considered only one impact cate-
gory, three extended the system boundary to include dairy pro-
cessing, and one studied the whole life cycle of milk products, from
cradle-to-grave. The 13 studies were evaluated using the four stages
defined by ISO (2006a,b) and the strengths, weaknesses and issues
demanding further research were identified.
3. Results and discussion
Milk production can vary within one country. Selection of farms
to characterize the system is very important and needs further
guidance in LCA. In the 13 LCAs, ten used dairy farm samples (2 to
>200) and the rest used national statistics. Both characterization
strategies are feasible as long as the goal is reached. However, the
farms were often not chosen at random when a case study was
carried but reflected data available to the authors (NL4), and thus
may not represent the production system in a region (FR3). Using
the national statistics can be time-efficient but uncertainty cannot
be quantified (Basset-Mens et al., 2009). Description of production
systems varied between countries and should be considered when
comparing LCAs.
3.1.4. Functional unit
The FU allows a comparison of alternative systems of product,
and only products with similar function can be compared (ISO,
2006a), i.e. it is not valid to compare emissions per unit milk with
those per unit meat. By relating the emission to the unit milk
produced, both the production efficiency and the environmental
impact are integrated (Haas et al., 2000). However this simple idea
can become complicated by units and quality. Most LCAs reviewed
used milk mass as the functional unit, for example DE8 used 1 tonne
of milk while FI9 used 1000 L of milk (1.5% fat). The most common
approach was modified milk mass. Swedish and Irish scientists used
“1 kg energy corrected milk (ECM)” (Sjaunja et al., 1990):

3.1. Goal and scope kg ECM ¼ kg milk  ð0:25 þ 0:122  Fat % þ 0:077
 Protein %Þ (1)
3.1.1. Goal
The goal, stated at the beginning of the project, includes while Dutch scientists used “1 kg fat and protein corrected milk
objectives, intended audience and application (ISO, 2006a). The (FPCM)” (R. Schils, per comm):
goal of the LCAs reviewed usually consisted of two parts: (i) to find
“environmental hotspots” within one (IE8, superscript number kg FPCM ¼ kg milk  ð0:337 þ 0:116  Fat % þ 0:06
cross-references with Table 2) or more (DE6, NL4) production  Protein %Þ (2)
modes, or to identify the role of tactical decisions within one
system (NO13); and (ii) to suggest possible improvements or the Both Equations (1) and (2) can be seen as quality-corrected FU and
consequences of implementing changes (NL10). Sometimes the goal a similar formula was suggested to be used by Schau and Fet (2008).

Please cite this article in press as: Yan, M.-J., et al., An evaluation of life cycle assessment of European milk production, Journal of Environmental
Management (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.10.025
Management (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.10.025
Please cite this article in press as: Yan, M.-J., et al., An evaluation of life cycle assessment of European milk production, Journal of Environmental

Table 2
Summary of LCA studies reviewed.

M.-J. Yan et al. / Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8

References: SE1 (Cederberg and Mattsson, 2000), SE2 (Cederberg and Flysjö, 2004), FR3 (Van der Werf et al., 2009), NL4 (Thomassen et al., 2008b), NL5 (Thomassen et al., 2009), DE6 (Haas et al., 2001), IE7 (Casey and Holden,
2005b), IE8 (Casey and Holden, 2005a), FI9 (Grönroos et al., 2006), NL10 (Thomassen et al., 2008a), SE11 (Cederberg and Stadig, 2003), ES12 (Hospido et al., 2003), NO13 (Høgaas Eide, 2002). a ECM ¼ energy corrected milk, FPCM ¼
fat and protein corrected milk. b E ¼ economic allocation, M ¼ mass allocation, B ¼ biological allocation. c O indicates that the item was included by the author, blank cell indicates that the item was either not included or not
mentioned by the author. d Choice of methods refers to the scenario discussion on functional unit, system boundaries, allocation, impact assessment methods etc.

3
4 M.-J. Yan et al. / Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8

Dairy unit

Input of Output of Transportation Transportation

Other Milk Milk Waste
Input of Output of
production, processing consumption management
the farm dairy unit the farm dairy unit
e.g. beef,
poultry,
crops

Cradle Farm gate Grave

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the life cycle of milk production (derived from principles defined in Sonnemann et al., 2003), defining the production phase to farm gate, value
added processing and eventual waste management.

When comparing milk LCAs, this information is essential in order to
make adjustments. An agreed standard would be useful for
harmonisation.
Some researchers have used on-farm (grassland) area (DE8) or
on- and off-farm area (FR3, IE7) as an FU. It should be noted that
using grassland area is not appropriate since relevant arable land,
which could be located worldwide, should also be responsible for
the environmental impact from the milk production on-farm. In
addition, although area as a functional unit might facilitate
comparison as a surrogate for production intensity, it can be argued
that: (i) area is neither a “function” nor a “measure” of function in
a milk production system; and (ii) it is important for policy makers
to review impacts scaled against the amount of product a system
generates rather than the impact per unit area the system occupies,
since real reductions in impact need to be balanced against demand
for products.
3.1.5. System boundary
The system boundary is a debated concept in LCA (Finnveden
et al., 2009). It is possible to define “boundary-less” agricultural
systems that are embedded within global supply chains or
boundaries that vary with time, but the ISO states that the
boundary should be defined to include the key elements of the
system (ISO, 2006a). Most European milk LCA studies have
considered neither the entire life cycle of the product (Fig. 1) nor all
the impact categories, and have focused only on the farm or dairy
unit. Therefore, they are “partial LCAs” (Sonnemann et al., 2003).
This is perhaps appropriate because 80% of the GHG emissions and
the remaining environmental intervention were due only to milk
and animal production” (p. 3646). IE7,8 discussed the production
system in terms of a “dairy unit” rather than a “farm”. The alloca-
tion of animal feed is often not avoidable, since many feeds have co-
products, e.g. meal and oil from soybean. Economic allocation of
feed and co-products was performed for most of the 13 papers
reviewed (Table 2).
There are usually two outputs from milk production: milk and
meat (from culled cows and surplus calves). Theoretically, there are
three approaches to handle this (Fig. 2): (1) Attributional LCA (ALCA)
with allocation (NL4); (2) ALCA with system expansion (SE11); and
(3) Consequential LCA (CLCA, NL10). Most LCAs of European milk
production fall into the first group (i.e. ALCA þ allocation) using
either economic, biological or mass allocation (Table 2). If the goal of
an LCA is to address mitigation options then allocation may not be
beneficial (SE11), for example combined beef and milk production
may be a good option (IE8).
In the goal and scope phase of LCA, a wide variety of approaches
were found (Table 2). A clear characterization of the production
system, functional unit, system boundary (indicating the processes
A
Avoided beef production
Dairy unit
Potential choices of marginal materials
Original boundary
X kg Milk Y kg Meat
New boundary

40% of the energy use associated with milk are due to production
(IDF, 2009). European milk LCAs have tended to use “cradle-to-
farm-gate” (de Boer, 2003) and include on-farm processes, off-farm B
production of feed, fertilizers, energy and their transportation.
Dairy unit Beef production
Discrepancies in the agricultural processes included by various
authors were found (Table 2). Capital goods (machinery and
buildings) were often excluded because of lack of data (SE1) and
X kg Milk Y kg Meat Y kg Meat
thus similarity in capital goods across farms must be assumed
(NL5). FR3 is an example of a study where agricultural machines
were included and allocated by hours or hectares of use. Production
of fertilizer was generally included, but not necessarily for off-farm C
concentrate feed. Soil function and carbon sequestration were Palm kernel meal

usually omitted (Table 2). It was difficult to quantify the effect of

differences between studies. A few publications on the uncertainty Others Soymeal Fertilizer
of boundary selection exist (Reap et al., 2008), but none have been
found about milk production.
Dairy unit
3.1.6. Allocation
Allocation describes how “inputs” and “outputs” are partitioned
between the product of interest and by-products (ISO, 2006b). By X kg Milk Y kg Meat
selecting highly specialised dairy farms with no other livestock
production (e.g. beef, lamb), some of the allocation could be avoi-
Y kg Beef
ded. SE2 deducted resources used and emissions associated with
the cultivation of exported crops, and FR3 removed all inputs,
outputs and agricultural area for crops and forages grown on the Fig. 2. Three approaches to managing multi-output LCA: (A) ALCA þ allocation, (B)
farm but not used for animal production, trying to ensure that “all ALCA þ system expansion, (C) CLCA, partly derived from Thomassen et al., 2008a.

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 M.-J. Yan et al. / Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8
included and excluded) and allocation procedures would make
comparisons easier in the future.
3.2. Life cycle inventory (LCI)
In LCI, data relating to the input and output of each process are
collected. For milk production, depending on the goals and scope,
this can require data from farms, feed processors, dairy industries,
retailers, and waste treatment. Various extents of inventory were
found (Table 2). Subsequently an emission factor (EF) is used to
convert the amount of activity captured in the inventory into
a pollutant quantity. Country or site-specific EFs for environmental
hotspots were not always adopted. For example, methane is often
an influential variable to climate change but a site-specific EF was
not always used (data not shown). In addition, phosphorous loss is
often not well quantified compared with the nitrogen cycle.
Researchers often either assigned a fixed run-off factor to the P
input or P surplus (FR3, SE1,2), or assumed that all surplus P were
lost (DE6, NL4,5). More attention should be paid to this limited
resource that is consumed almost exclusively by food production
(Cordell et al., 2009).
According to ISO (2006a), LCIA is mandatory for an LCA study.
When the LCIA phase is excluded study is referred to as an LCI. Two
LCI studies on milk production were reviewed (FI9, SE2). In general,
the LCIA should always be presented.
3.3. Life cycle impact assessment
The LCIA phase consists of mandatory and optional elements (ISO,
2006b). For the mandatory elements LCI data are processed by
“environmental mechanisms” into specific environmental impact
categories (classification), and then characterization factors (CFs) for
each category are applied to calculate a category indicator value
(characterization). By application of CFs, the LCI results can be con-
verted to common units, e.g. for climate change this would be global
warming potential (GWP). The baseline impact categories are abiotic
resource depletion, land use, climate change, stratospheric ozone
depletion, human/eco-toxicity, photo-oxidant formation, acidifica-
tion and eutrophication (Guinée, 2002). Their use is summarized in
Table 2. The most common impact studied was climate change, fol-
lowed by abiotic resource depletion, acidification and eutrophication.
These reflect regional interest in global warming (UNFCCC, 1997) and
nutrient loss (as regulated by the Nitrates Directive (European
Council, 1991) and other legislations). Land use is also an important
aspect in milk production but impact assessment is still in its infancy.
Impacts such as photo-oxidant formation, depletion of stratospheric
ozone have proved either not fully applicable, or contribute little
when compared to industrial processes (Brentrup et al., 2004).
Human/eco-toxicity can result from heavy metal accumulation and
pesticide use, but detailed data are limited (NL4). Milk production
may not significantly contribute to this category (Høgaas Eide, 2002).
However, some authors have listed the pesticides used (NO13, SE1,2),
and some have included the energy used for pesticide production and
supply, but excluded the toxic effects (FR3). Biodiversity and animal
husbandry were included in only one study (DE8) but were identified
as important agri-environmental issues and thus need to be
addressed (Haas et al., 2000).
Among those that included “abiotic resource depletion”, the
calculation was inconsistent. Three included energy and non-
energy resources (ES12, SE1,2), while others only included energy
consumption. The impact assessment methods were only pre-
sented by NL10.
There is no consensus on the assessment of land use (Milà i
Canals et al., 2006). Peters et al. (2003) suggested the disputed
“ecosystem exergy concept”, while Brentrup et al. (2004) suggested
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5
“naturalness degradation potentials” as the CFs for different land
use types. Haas et al. (2000) suggested that land use was not an
appropriate concept for agricultural LCA and suggested “landscape
image” and self-defined criteria. Among those that considered land
use, the total “occupation” of agricultural land (both on- and/or off-
farm) was used and no change of the land use was assumed.
Indirect land use change is part of consequential LCA and the
assessment is still under development (ILCD, 2010). It was not clear
from NL10 whether the indirect land use change associated with
concentrate feed production (e.g. soybean) is considered or not.
Small difference in the value of global warming potential (GWP)
was found. Six authors used IPCC 1996 where GWPCH4 ¼ 21 and
GWPN2O ¼ 310 (DE6, IE7,8, NL4, SE1,11), two used IPCC 2001 where
GWPCH4 ¼ 23 and GWPN2O ¼ 296 (ES12, NL5), one used IPCC 2007
where GWPCH4 ¼ 25 and GWPN2O ¼ 298 (FR3), and the others did
not include this assessment (SE2) or didn’t mention the GWP clearly
(NL10, NO13).
Almost all of the studies applied general CFs in local/regional
impact categories. Taking acidification as an example, the general CF
of NH3 is 1.88 kg SO2 eq (Heijungs et al., 1992), while the CF of NH3
suggested by Brentrup et al. (2004) was 4.40 for Sweden, 2.00 for
France, 1.0 for the Netherlands and 1.50 for Germany, and FR3 used
the European average of 1.6 kg SO2 eq. Since NH3 is considered as the
main contributor to acidification from agriculture production
(ECETOC,1994), general CFs can weaken the relevance of LCA results.
Emissions related to production that take place in other parts of the
world should have their own CFs as well (Huijbregts, 1998).
Besides classification and characterization, only one study
applied normalisation for the impact categories and compared
them with the situation in West Europe in 1995 (ES12). Brentrup
et al. (2004) suggested two final indicators (or groupings) as
resource depletion and environmental impacts for LCA of agricul-
tural production, which is another step forward from the generally
recognized “human health, ecosystem and resources” groupings
(Goedkoop et al., 2000, p. 15).
In order to make future agricultural LCA studies comparable and
useful for regional policy development and planning, it may be
necessary for the research community to establish a recommended
set of baseline categories and characterization factors (or methods
to derive them locally).
3.4. Interpretation
Interpretation of LCIA (ISO, 2006b) consists of identifying
significant issues (FI9), evaluation (NL12), sensitivity evaluation (IE8),
assessment of data quality (ES12) and conclusions. Most studies
identified the main causes of impacts, recommended mitigation
measures and offered conclusions. Two aspects tended to be avoi-
ded: sensitivity and uncertainty, and the direct inter-comparison of
results is therefore often not possible.
The main impacts of milk production are similar among studies.
Fossil energy and mineral fertilizers (off-farm) are the main
contributors to abiotic resources (e.g. FI9, SE1); pasture yield,
stocking rate and choice of purchased feed to land use (e.g. NL4,10,
SE1,11); CH4 from cattle and manure management, N2O from soil
(on-farm), production of synthetic fertilizer and concentrate feed
(off-farm) to climate change (e.g. IE8, NL4, SE1); NH3 emissions from
manure and fertilizer application (on-farm) and from production of
purchased feed (off-farm) to acidification (e.g. NL4, SE1); and NH3
emissions, nitrate leaching and phosphate loss to water from on-
farm and off-farm field production to eutrophication (e.g. NL4, SE1).
Choice of FU, system boundary, allocation and other assump-
tions give inherent uncertainty to inter-comparisons. In addition,
sampling strategies should be taken into account when comparing
LCAs from different countries. It is also worth noting that farmer
6 M.-J. Yan et al. / Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8
management can have more effect than type of production (FR3).
Comparisons, especially between countries, should be carried out
with full awareness of the uncertainties.
Huijbregts et al. (2003) classified the uncertainties of LCA by
parameters, scenarios and models, and proposed Monte Carlo
simulation for quantifying parameter uncertainty, and nonpara-
metric bootstrapping for quantifying scenarios and model uncer-
tainty. Ross et al. (2002) found that very few LCAs considered the
uncertainties linked to impact assessment. Of the earlier studies
reviewed here (published between 2000 and 2006), only one tested
the parameter uncertainty (IE7). However, some of the more recent
studies indicated the magnitude of uncertainty (FR3, NL4,5), and
Basset-Mens et al. (2009) set a good example by quantifying the
uncertainties of GHG emissions in milk production in New Zealand
using Monte Carlo simulation. It is worth emphasising that the
ultimate aim of LCA is to provide an acceptable basis for making
decisions, just like that of EIA (Andrews, 1992). If an LCA study is
presented without discussing the probabilities associated with
impacts, the quality of decisions may be poor.
It is difficult to derive from the studies which approach to
dairying has least environmental impact. Reference to North
American and New Zealand work can help. Some North American
scientists have argued that confinement-based dairy systems
make more efficient use of resources than pasture systems
(Arsenault et al., 2009), which means that they reduce the relative
impact by increasing the amount of milk produced. Some New
Zealand scientists, however, believe that a very short cycle of
“grass / cow / manure as fertilizer for grass” reduces energy
consumption compared to systems dominated by the production
and transport of concentrated feed (Basset-Mens et al., 2007),
which means that they try to reduce the impact directly. The
expression of impact is also related to how the environmental
impact is scaled.
The effect of FU can be revealed during interpretation. For
example, comparing impact per mass of milk to impact per area of
land reveals how choice of FU will influence the conclusions drawn.
Basset-Mens et al. (2007) compared the New Zealand (NZ) result
with those of Sweden (SE1) and the Netherlands (NL4). For the
impact category of climate change, the order of kg CO2 eq per kg
milk is NL4org > NL4con > SE1con > SE1org > NZav, while that of kg CO2 eq
per ha of land is NL4con > NL4org > NZav > SE1con > SE1org (org ¼ organic,
con ¼ conventional, av ¼ national average). Note that the order
SEcon > SEorg does not change whether expressed kg CO2 eq per kg
milk or per ha of land, while that of the Netherlands does, and the
rank of NZav shifts as well. The reason for that can be illustrated by
Equation (3):
impact total milkðkgÞ cow number
 
total milkðkgÞ cow number forage areaðhaÞ
forage areaðhaÞ impact
 ¼
global areaðhaÞ global areaðhaÞ
The environmental impact expressed per kg milk has to be multi-
plied by the milk production per cow, the stocking rate, and the ratio
of on-farm forage area to global area, to get the impact per global ha
(forage area on-farm produces feed for livestock, global area ¼
on-farm area þ off-farm area). Thus a high kg CO2 eq per kg ha does
not necessarily result in a low kg CO2 per kg milk, and vice versa. The
conversions in Equation (3) serve to remind decision makers to be
very careful with LCA results and the way they are interpreted.
3.5. Future LCA developments
LCA indicates environmental burden throughout the life cycle of
a product, and can reveal shifts within or between categories. For
Please cite this article in press as: Yan, M.-J., et al., An evaluation of life cycle assessment of European milk production, Journal of Environmental
Management (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.10.025
example LCA should be able to reveal detail addressing whether
storing more C as organic matter in soil may exacerbate N pollution,
both of which contribute to climate change (Whitmore et al., 2009).
However, LCA is based on linear modelling, technical assumptions
and value choices, which are to some extent arbitrary (Guinée, 2002).
Furthermore it cannot indicate shifting burdens from one product to
another (Huijungs et al., 1996), and from this view point, conse-
quential LCA has merit. It is very difficult to see how the published
European LCAs could be used to reliably inform regional policy
making due to their inconsistencies and operational differences,
despite the fact that all were based on the same standard
methodology.
Regionalization and temporization of LCA are currently being
developed and will make LCA more specific and dynamic (Levasseur
et al., 2010; Posch et al., 2008), although inevitably more compli-
cated. New impact categories like soil function and land use are
making LCA more appropriate for agriculture (Walter and Stützel,
2009). Since LCA only addresses the environmental aspects of the
production system, studies incorporating economic and social
aspects are also being published. Correlating environmental indi-
cators (LCA result) with economic indicators (labour productivity)
could offer insight into the sustainability of agriculture production
(NL5). Optimising the sustainability of agriculture by attributing
financial values to the resources consumed and burden imposed on
the environment (with LCA methods) is another interesting possi-
bility (Glendining et al., 2009).
Recently, Type III environmental declaration has been recom-
mended by ISO 14025 (ISO, 2006c) to ensure comparisons of LCA
studies. Product category rules (PCRs), which are the guidelines for
developing Type III environmental declarations, have been
proposed for processed liquid milk (Boeri, 2010) and are subjected
to debate (Lorentzon, 2010). The findings here are in general
agreement with the milk production phase of the PCR.
4. Conclusions
From this review, it is clear that LCAs can be made incompatible
by author-derived decisions and assumptions. Simplified LCA may
not help provide efficient mitigation strategies for environmental
problems. Future LCA of milk production should ensure that: (1) the
production system is appropriately characterized according to the
goal of study; (2) a clear description of the system boundary and
allocation procedures is provided according to the statement of ISO
standards; (3) a common functional unit, probably Energy Cor-
rected Milk, should be used or the assumed fat and protein content
should be presented to enable future comparisons; (4) where
appropriate, site-specific emission factors and characterization
factors should be used in environmental hotspots (e.g. manure
management, synthetic fertilizer production and spreading,
ð3Þ production of purchased feed), and phosphorous loss should be
better addressed; (5) a range of impact categories including climate
change, energy use, land use, acidification and eutrophication
should be used to address pollution swapping, all of which are
subject to national or regional directives (e.g. European Council,
1991); perhaps in the future biodiversity should also be included;
and (6) the sensitivity to choices of methods and uncertainty of
results should be evaluated.
Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the Department of Agriculture and
Food research Stimulus Fund Programme (RSF07-516) funded by
the Irish Government National Development Plan.
 M.-J. Yan et al. / Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2010) 1e8 7

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