Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Land use and land use change in agricultural life cycle assessments
and carbon footprints - the case for regionally specific land use change
versus other methods
Stefan Hörtenhuber a, b, *, Gerhard Piringer b, Werner Zollitsch b, Thomas Lindenthal a, c,
Wilfried Winiwarter d, e
a
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) Austria, Doblhoffgasse 7/10, A-1010 Vienna, Austria
b
BOKU e University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Division of Livestock Sciences,
Gregor Mendel Straße 33, A-1180 Vienna, Austria
c
BOKU e University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Centre for Global Change and Sustainability, Borkowskigasse 4, A-1190 Vienna, Austria
d
University of Graz, Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research, Merangasse 18/l, A-8010 Graz, Austria
e
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria

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

Article history: The supply chain of a product is essential for understanding its environmental impacts. As parts of
Received 31 March 2013 agricultural product supply chains, land use (LU) and land use change (LUC) are considered to be major
Received in revised form contributors to global CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, LU and LUC (LULUC) are rarely included in GHG
30 November 2013
estimations for food and feedstuffs. Here we propose a method which can be used to derive emissions
Accepted 10 December 2013
Available online 18 December 2013
from LU and LUC on a regional level. Emissions are distributed over an accounting period chosen to
match the physically occurring carbon fluxes. As fluxes from soil organic carbon persist for years or even
for decades after a LUC episode, depending on the climatic conditions of the region, we apply 10 and 20
Keywords:
Land use
years as suitable accounting periods for tropical and temperate climate zones, respectively. We compare
Land use change the proposed method with two other methods proposed in the literature. Using two types of feedstuffs
Agriculture (Brazilian soybean-meal and Austrian barley) as examples, we find that the other two methods produce
Greenhouse gas emissions mostly lower emission estimates in the case of Brazilian soybeans, and higher estimates for Austrian
GHG barley. We conclude that these differences are caused mainly by different accounting periods and by a
Feedstuffs (non)consideration of regional specificities. While analysing life cycles necessarily entails a well sup-
ported e but still arbitrary e setting of such system boundaries, we argue that the methodology pre-
sented here better reflects actually occurring carbon fluxes that we understand to be the foundation of
any environmental product assessment.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Agriculture, and especially animal husbandry, cause considerable
emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). In addition to the emissions
from the livestock itself, its supply chain, specifically the production
of feed, needs to be considered. This was found to contribute
considerably to overall GHGs from animal husbandry, both from
direct cultivation-related emissions (from soil or fuels) and from
indirect emissions (e.g. Leip et al., 2010; Weiss and Leip, 2012). The
term “indirect” here refers to emissions that do not occur at the
location or time of feedstuff cultivation; they include for example
* Corresponding author. Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) Austria,
Doblhoffgasse 7/10, A-1010 Vienna, Austria. Tel.: þ43 (0)1 9076313; fax: þ43 (0)1
9076313 20.
E-mail addresses: stefan.hoertenhuber@boku.ac.at, stefan.hoertenhuber@fibl.
org (S. Hörtenhuber).
those caused by land use change (Hörtenhuber et al., 2011), or from
fertilizer manufacturing. This impact of feed may strongly differ by
region (Plassmann et al., 2010; Van Middelaar et al., 2013). As
opposed to previous findings (e.g. Dalgaard et al., 2008), information
on characteristics of supply chains and on specified regions of origin
of raw materials is increasingly available, for example on a national
scale (due to traceability or certified agricultural goods traded; see
e.g. UNIDO, 2010). The information can be used to estimate product-
specific GHG emissions. This permits the development of a product-
and region-specific approach for emissions from the supply chains of
most livestock production systems; in this work, we specifically
address GHGs related to land-use and land-use-change (LULUC)
originating from the production of feedstuffs.
Land use change (LUC) is also termed “land conversion” or “land
transformation” in life cycle assessments (LCAs). It describes
emissions caused by a change from a previous use to a current use,

0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.027
32 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
such as the change from grasslands, savannahs or forests to crop-
land. Land use change and e to a much lesser extent e land use (LU,
also termed “land occupation”) are thought to be among the major
contributors to global CO2 emissions, especially in the tropical re-
gions of South-America, Asia and Africa. Emissions from LUC are
reported to have contributed approximately 20% of total global
CO2-emissions during the 1980ies and 1990ies (Denman et al.,
2007). For the 2000 to 2010 decade the proportion of CO2-emis-
sions originating from LUC decreases from roughly 19% to about
12% (Poruschi et al., 2010), or even 10% (Harris et al., 2012). How-
ever, this decrease is on the one hand caused by a decreasing
amount of CO2-emissions from deforestation and on the other hand
by a strongly increasing CO2 emission load from fossil sources
which occurred in most years of this time period (see e.g. Le Quéré
et al., 2013; Poruschi et al., 2010). On the one hand, LUC from
vegetated land is usually associated with a large, loss of carbon
from (perennial) aboveground biomass, and on the other hand, soil
organic carbon (SOC) is typically mineralized and emitted as a
consequence of soil disturbance during LUC and LU. Furthermore,
LUC and to a lesser extent LU cause other negative environmental
effects, as they usually result in a significantly reduced biodiversity,
especially in tropical regions (ten Brink et al., 2009). Additionally,
LUC leads to a loss of water in the global water cycle (Avissar and
Werth, 2005).
Despite their large contribution to global GHG emissions, the
effects of LU and LUC have rarely been accounted for in previous
LCAs or carbon footprints of food and feedstuffs (Garnett, 2009; De
Vries and de Boer, 2009). Dalgaard et al. (2008) state that this is due
to both conceptual and methodological limitations. The conceptual
limitation refers to the feasibility of consistently quantifying all
changes in SOC that occur in an agricultural production chain, not
just those from LUC. Furthermore the authors note the in-
consistencies in considering LULUC emission only for feedstuffs
from Brazil and Argentina, but not for inputs from European
farmland. Concerning methodological limitations, Dalgaard et al.
(2008) note that the origin of feedstuffs and therefore the
affected ecosystems are frequently not known, preventing a region-
specific estimate of quantitative changes in above-ground and
below-ground carbon. Additionally, the authors note that it is not
clear whether LUC-related emissions should be completely
ascribed to the crops cultivated during the first year or distributed
over a debatable period of years of cultivation. Furthermore, a study
published by Morton et al. (2006) mention a lack of data on the
type of land use after conversion or on the specific crops being
established on newly converted cropland. A mere lack of avail-
ability of data together with their uncertainty may also hamper
inclusion of LULUC in LCAs or carbon footprints (Dalgaard et al.,
2008; Plassmann et al., 2010; Van Middelaar et al., 2013).
In contrast to many feed and food supply chains, a number of
studies on biofuels already includes GHG emissions from LUC due
to a detailed description of carbon cycles. For example, Fargione
et al. (2008) calculated the time required for biofuels to cancel a
“carbon debt” from LUC to be 0e423 years; Searchinger et al.
(2008) found for ethanol produced from maize that this payback
time would be 167 years, and 34 years under optimistic assump-
tions. The issue of LULUC is critical for biofuels as the extent of net
GHG savings from their use is a key argument for their production
and political support (EP/EC, 2009). Since mitigation strategies for
GHG are intensely discussed in agriculture in general, carbon
emission or sequestration from LULUC might similarly be consid-
ered in feedstuff and food supply chains, especially as parts of their
ingredients are derived from co-products of biofuels production.
In recent years, a few frameworks for estimation of carbon
footprints, e.g. for food, have provided methods to deal with
LULUC-related emissions. However, a consistent foundation is
partly missing. For example, PAS2050-guidelines (BSI, 2011) rely on
carbon emission factors per hectare of land given in IPCC (2006),
but they provide no scientific explanation for suggesting a dis-
counting period of 20 years for the resulting emissions.
Earlier methodological studies typically focused on the broader
impacts of LULUC on biodiversity and the life-support function of
ecosystems (e.g. Lindeijer et al., 1998; Milà i Canals et al., 2007). A
literature review identified several recent studies that attempted to
establish methodological foundations for assessing LULUC-related
contributions to GHG emissions for food and feedstuff LCAs: Zaks
et al. (2009) provide a methodological basis for the calculation of
LULUC-related emissions from agricultural products and conducted
case studies for Brazilian soybeans and beef. Müller-Wenk and
Brandão (2010) investigated ways to integrate the impact of land
use on climate impacts into LCAs. Ponsioen and Blonk (2012)
calculated LUC-related carbon footprints for agricultural products,
while Kool et al. (2009), Meul et al. (2012), Van Middelaar et al.
(2013) and Schmidinger and Stehfest (2012) specifically
addressed LULUC emissions from feedstuffs. Furthermore,
Cederberg et al. (2011), Leip et al. (2010) and Weiss and Leip (2012)
analysed LULUC-related emissions from livestock which originate
from feedstuff production. However, in the majority of publications
on feed and food product chains, no consideration of LULUC was
found when estimating GHG emissions. This underlines a meth-
odological gap particularly concerning accounting periods which
are essential for an allocation of direct, product- and region-specific
LULUC-related emissions. The latter is addressed in this study.
Clearly, there is a need for further developing LULUC quantifi-
cation methods beyond those suggested so far in literature. The
objective of this paper was to propose a method that is based on a
consideration of actually occurring LULUC-related CO2-emissions.
This is accomplished by addressing appropriate system boundaries
as well as accounting periods (temporal system boundaries) sepa-
rately for LU and LUC (see chapter 2.1). In chapters 3 and 4 we apply
this method to estimate LULUC effects and their contributions to
the overall GHG emissions from the supply chain for soybeans and
barley (see “Results” and “Discussion”, chapters 3 and 4). We also
compare these results to those derived from two other methods
from literature and to a “default” variant without LULUC-related
emissions. Chapter 5 presents our conclusions.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Proposed method e scope and system boundaries
This paper presents a method to estimate LULUC-related
regionally specific emissions for agricultural lands (grassland,
cropland, and perennial grassland) and assign these emissions to
products. While the aim is to look at European livestock products,
their supply chain includes products that may have been derived
from overseas. Specifically, crops such as oil seeds quantitatively
dominate the agricultural imports (European Commission, 2013).
LUC from forests to grasslands is also linked to European food
production via imports of grass-fed beef, and large LUC-related
emissions from these imports (see Cederberg et al., 2011) can also
be calculated with the method described herein.
System boundaries for crop-specific emissions from LULUC have
been developed based on modelling and a literature review
(Hörtenhuber, 2011). There, it was concluded that system bound-
aries for agricultural LUC should be defined broadly when esti-
mating GHG emissions from agricultural production in general.
Therefore, the proposed method includes both short-term CO2
emissions from the removal of above-ground biomass and longer-
lasting emissions from mineralized SOC (including below-ground
biomass from cleared vegetation). The latter can last decades but
 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
are still a consequence of soil disruption during LUC. Besides LUC,
the proposed method considers agricultural LU which has the po-
tential to cause GHG emissions (or sequestration) for the duration
of the use as cropland and grassland. These emissions depend on
crop management practices, e.g. the crop rotation, fertilization, and
different types, times and intensities of tillage activities, etc. We
propose to limit estimates of LU-related GHG emissions to actually
occurring emissions and resource use, in a way similar to that
proposed by Weiss and Leip (2012) or Van Middelaar et al. (2013),
but opposed to a common approach in LCA (e.g. Kool et al., 2009;
Milà i Canals et al., 2007; Schmidinger and Stehfest, 2012) that
assumes a default climax vegetation and uses the difference be-
tween current LU and climax vegetation to derive environmental
impacts.
2.1.1. Indirect land use change
Besides the direct effects of LUC, indirect land use change (iLUC)
can affect GHG calculations for agricultural crops: when the crop in
question replaces an existing crop on agricultural land, supplies of
the previous crop may be secured at least partially by transforming
non-agricultural land to cropland elsewhere. Because of the
increasing relevance of the production of agro-energy, methods for
the estimation of iLUC have been developed by several authors (e.g.
Plevin et al., 2010; Overmars et al., 2011) and are currently exten-
sively discussed in the literature (Sanchez et al., 2012). Similarly,
iLUC which is related to the expansion of food and feed production
is starting to be discussed (Dalgaard and Schmidt, 2012). Ap-
proaches which integrate iLUC on a global, but not on a regional or
national level, were proposed by Williams et al. (2010) and Vellinga
et al. (2013; method C below), also for food and feedstuffs. A
thorough treatment of iLUC depends on sophisticated economic
models, which depict international markets and trade flows. iLUC is
not the primary focus of this study and was not directly addressed
in the proposed method. However, iLUC effects could be added
when consensus has been reached on a suitable method.
2.1.2. Temporal system boundaries
In LCA practice, one-time impacts from infrastructure that are
shared between several subsequent products or processes have to
be allocated between these products. The construction of roads in a
transportation LCA is a case in point. Similarly, the conversion to
agricultural land through a one-time process of LUC creates a
cleared soil infrastructure for many subsequent harvests. The im-
pacts from this process are usually allocated evenly over all of the
ensuing harvests. Since the number of harvests is usually highly
uncertain, an accounting period is then defined that fixes this
number at a more or less arbitrary value. The choice of accounting
period is intensely debated (see e.g. Dalgaard et al., 2008; Ponsioen
and Blonk, 2012). It could for example reflect the actual period
during which LUC causes emissions, or it could reflect the planning
horizon (depreciation period) of the economic motivation for LUC.
In the proposed method, we prefer to focus on physical emission
fluxes: For below-ground GHG emissions from disrupted SOC and
decaying biomass that continue for years after the initial LUC, the
choice of accounting period is chosen according to the actual
duration of these emissions. Information on the duration of LUC-
related soil carbon fluxes was collected during a literature review.
Literature (e.g. Houghton and Hackler, 2001; IPCC, 2006; Watson
et al., 2000; West et al., 2004) points to multiple-year emissions
until a new equilibrium for soil carbon is achieved and this equil-
ibration time can be used for defining the accounting period for
below-ground emissions due to LUC. Due to the logarithmic shape
of the cumulative CO2 emission curves (West et al., 2004), about
93% and 99% of emissions from SOC are assumed to be released
within 10 years from temperate and tropical soils, respectively.
33
After 20 years, even temperate soils tend to approach equilibrium
(more than 99% of all SOC emissions have occurred). As described in
detail elsewhere (Hörtenhuber, 2011) we thus propose to use 10
years as accounting period for tropical soils, and 20 years for
temperate soils.
As with below-ground GHG releases, carbon releases from
above-ground biomass will not occur instantaneously. Wherever
biomass is removed, it can remain stored for several years before
complete release of GHGs to the atmosphere. As it is very difficult to
quantify individual pathways, we simply define for above-ground
GHG emissions the same accounting period as for below-ground
GHG emissions.
The resulting accounting periods turn out to be comparable to
those in common carbon footprint standards (e.g. BSI, 2011). In
terms of practicability, one may also argue that longer accounting
periods (i.e. 30 years and longer) would e even for relatively recent
tropical LUC e increasingly lack accurate historical data concerning
LULUC-related emissions, area of converted land, areas of cultivated
crops and related yields, etc. Additionally, the likelihood increases
of changed production patterns that are not easily accounted for
(e.g. introduction of new crops, cessation of other crops) and
introduce an additional problem of allocating LUC impacts between
the subsequent production patterns.
If reforestation occurs after agricultural land use has ceased, the
proposed method would allocate the impacts (i.e., mostly benefits
in the form of sequestered carbon) of this land use change to the
process causing it, that is to the subsequent land-use and the forest
products harvested then. This is in contrast to the treatment of
reforestation in several studies (e.g. Zaks et al., 2009; Cederberg
et al., 2011), where the carbon sequestered by secondary forest
after deforestation and agricultural use as cropland or pasture is
credited to the carbon balance of these preceding agricultural uses.
2.1.3. Spatial system boundaries
Ideally, spatial system boundaries for derivation of LULUC-
related emissions should delineate areas that are homogeneous
regarding potential natural vegetation, soil and historical occur-
rences, e.g. human or natural disturbances. In a broader spatial
context and in the absence of area-specific data (e.g., on the origin
of raw materials or on regional carbon contents and emission fac-
tors), those regional scales with the best available data sources
should be used. At the lowest level of spatial resolution, this at least
calls for using national statistics, supplemented by other data to
arrive at a useful regional scale where areas can be differentiated
concerning potential natural vegetation, soil and historical occur-
rences of disturbances.
2.2. Methods used in the case studies with Brazilian soybeans and
Austrian barley
2.2.1. Proposed method
Emission estimates from LUC were based on annual changes in
the area taken up by cropland at the expense of forests, grasslands
or savannahs.
For Brazil, area distributions of average Brazilian cropland
changes were used in place of soy-specific distributions, mainly
because such data are not available yet on a national scale. We used
data from PAS2050 (BSI, 2011) and we distinguished two main LUC
categories: forest to cropland (mainly “Amazon”, where a total of
740 tons of CO2 per hectare can be expected to be lost after LUC to
annual cropland); and grasslands (etc.) to cropland (with an esti-
mated loss of 44 tons of CO2 per hectare after LUC to annual
cropland). Grasslands here include pasture land, savannahs (mainly
“Cerrado”) and scrublands. Annual changes in land category shares
were derived from nationwide statistics according to FAO-
34 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
databases (FAO, 2013), which allowed to directly assess changes in
forest area, while grasslands area change was assessed indirectly as
the remaining increase of the cropland area share (again as re-
ported by FAO).
Table 1 shows the respective proportions for a ten-year ac-
counting period (2002e2011) and a twenty-year accounting period
(1992e2011) according to FAO (2013) for the two LUC categories
mentioned above (column “Average Brazilian soybeans”). For
example, for a ten year period prior to 2011, 85.5% of all Brazilian
cropland had already been established as such. The remaining
14.5% were estimated to originate from cleared tropical forest area
or grasslands. These 14.5% were split according to data from studies
that estimate 65e80% of newly deforested area being followed by
pastures (see e.g. Morton et al., 2006; Butler, 2012) for the reflected
time periods. Accordingly, we assumed that 25% of newly defor-
ested area are converted directly to cropland. This estimated area
was subtracted from the 14.5% and was used as the portion of
cropland coming from forest; the difference was ascribed to crop-
land coming from grasslands. This translates into 7.8% of newly
converted cropland originating from forests and the remaining 6.7%
coming from grassland.
Table 1 also introduces a further scenario (column “Certified
Brazilian soybeans”; Table 1) for each of the two periods. This de-
scribes a large portion of soybean meal imported to Austria that is
certified under the “Basel criteria” (ProForest, 2004). These criteria
exclude crops from tropical forest areas recently cleared from
certification.
The approach outlined above seems reasonable, although it uses
nationwide data and not region-specific data. We found that
region-specific LUC data were not readily available for overall
Brazil. In future work, region-specific carbon fluxes and LUC
emissions may be derived from remote-sensing data (e.g. Morton
et al., 2006; Macedo et al., 2012), thereby increasing the spatial
resolution of the proposed method.
Specifically, in the case of Brazilian soybeans, we used data for
average cropland LUC, since nationwide soy-specific LUC data could
not be found. This approximation may overestimate direct LUC
effects: While the percentage of expansion of soybean area alone is
even higher than that of average cropland (FAO, 2013), most soy-
bean area expansion was into existing cropland or grassland.
However, some authors argue that soybean has caused iLUC within
Brazil by causing other crops to expand into forests, grassland or
pasture (Morton et al., 2006; Fearnside, 2008; Macedo et al., 2012).
Table 1
Area distribution and average yields of Brazilian soybean cropland (FAO, 2013). Area
distribution is an average of all Brazilian crops and was assumed to be representative
for the case of soybeans as well.
Accounting period Certified Brazilian Average Brazilian
soybeans soybeans
10 years 20 years 10 years
Proportion of area 93.9 93.1 85.5
being arable land
before the period
(no LUC; %)
Proportion of area 3.9 4.4 7.8
converted from
(tropical) forest (%)
Proportion of area 2.2 2.5 6.7
converted from
savannahs (%)
Averaged yearly 2666 2483 2666
yields in the
periods (kg DM)a
a
available data from FAO (2013) do not distinguish between yields of GMO-
containing and yields of certified soybeans.
Thus, our potential overestimate of direct LUC effects may partially
compensate the fact that our method does not explicitly include
iLUC. Consequently, some of the iLUC-related emissions which
were found in literature may be addressed in our LUC-related
emission estimates for Brazilian soybeans.
For Austrian barley, net LUCs to cropland did not occur in the last
decades. On the contrary, a net surplus of previous agricultural land
has been converted to “more natural” land use categories involving
a higher soil carbon pool, i.e. mainly previous grasslands to forest
land.
Emissions from LU need to be calculated separately for each
crop. They reflect additional emissions from a loss of SOC due to
crop management practices, e.g. ploughing. For an average Brazilian
soybean crop as well as for certified soybeans, the same generic LU-
related emissions were derived based on total national LU-
emissions (Cerri et al., 2009) and the fraction of soybean-
cultivated area to total agricultural area averaged over ten and 20
years (FAO, 2013). For Austrian barley, the estimate is based on
average regional yields (Hörtenhuber et al., 2010) and on a typical
SOC loss rate of 202 kg CO2 per ha and year (Küstermann et al.,
2008) for a standard crop rotation and soil parameters that are
typical for Austria. The rate estimate is based on the REPRO model
(Hülsbergen and Küstermann, 2005) and assumes near equilib-
rium, with some carbon losses.
2.2.2. Methods used for comparison
For comparison to the proposed region-specific method
(method A in this study) we calculated LULUC-related emissions
with two other methods (Table 2): method B is a land use impact
method by Müller-Wenk and Brandão (2010); method C is based on
average global LULUC-related emissions (Vellinga et al., 2013).
Method B by Müller-Wenk and Brandão (2010) gives specific
emission factors for LUC and LU for different biomes and types of
land use (e.g., tropical/temperate forests, tropical/temperate
grassland, cropland). Critically, the authors base their calculations
on the assumption that the atmospheric residence time for carbon
from LULUC is shortened by the eventual uptake of that carbon due
to a spontaneous reversal to a quasi-natural vegetation at the end of
land use. Müller-Wenk and Brandão (2010) allocate overall emis-
sions from LULUC to the (agriculturally) occupied land, distributing
it over varying durations of land use, which are derived from
“relaxation times”. Typically, these times are in the range of 31e119
years. A few assumptions were applied to method B to allow
comparison: Results for land occupation (LU) take into account that
overall Brazilian cropland used for example for soybean production
is (since the first Brazilian conversions) mostly coming from former
grassland areas or savannah-like vegetation and to a lesser extent
from former forest lands. Accordingly, calculations for method B
assume three quarters of overall farmland for soybeans coming
from savannah-like vegetation and grasslands, one quarter from
forests. No difference was made between average Brazilian and
20 years certified soybeans.
72.0 Method C (Vellinga et al., 2013) calculates global CO2-eq emis-
sion from LULUC (5.8 Gt per year) per total agricultural land used
(4.9 * 109 ha). This translates into 1180 kg CO2-eq per ha and year, or
18.0
0.472 kg CO2-eq per kg crop if the yield is assumed at 2500 kg per
ha, which is a typical yield for soy crops. The approach is similar to
that used by Williams et al. (2010).
10.0
2.2.3. Illustrative case studies
2483 To accentuate the difference between the three methods’
description of LULUC-related GHG emissions over time, we used
the three methods to calculate the cumulative GHG emissions for
two case studies. They are based on more severe LUC than the more
realistic assumptions above: the “rainforest case” assumes e purely
 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39 35

Table 2
Specific CO2 emissions from LUC and LU for three different calculation methods.

kg CO2-eq per kg DM feedstuff GWP calculation method Average Austrian Certified Brazilian Average Brazilian
barley solvent-extracted solvent-extracted
soybean meal soybean meal

Emissions from LUC Method A (Proposed Method) e 10 years accounting period 0.626 1.341
GHG emissions from LU 0.098 0.098
Total emissions (LU þ LUC) 0.724 1.439
GHG emissions from LUC Method A (Proposed Method) e 20 years accounting period 0 0.759 3.097
GHG emissions from LU 0.050 0.119 0.119
Total emissions (LU þ LUC) 0.050 0.878 3.216
GHG emissions from LU/LUC Method B (Müller-Wenk and Brandão, 2010) 0.385 0.891 0.891
(land occupation)
Global average LU/LUC emissions Method C (Vellinga et al., 2013) 0.246 0.389 0.389
related to grain yields

for illustrative purposes e that all of the new cropland is converted
from tropical rainforest, while the original assumptions are based
on a more realistic conversion from a mixture of grassland, rain-
forest and already established cropland. This only affects methods A
and B, but not method C, due to that method’s premises as
explained above. For the “old-world LUC” case, barley is produced
on land converted from grassland. The assumption above was that
in Austria no net LUC occurs (this affects only method A, while
methods B and C still assign a combined LULUC effect). This sce-
nario reflects structural change in a region in northern Austria
where grasslands for feeding a dwindling livestock population are
potentially converted to cropland. This is an exception to the
nationwide situation, where such conversions are negligible. Data
on calculating carbon stock changes and carbon emissions for “old
world LUC” were taken from Anderl et al. (2012; in total 72 tons of
CO2 lost per hectare over up to 30 years after LUC from grassland to
annual cropland) and BSI (2011; as described in chapter 2.2.1) for
the “rainforest case”. For the purpose of comparison we also show
for each case study a realistic cumulative GHG emission curve
which contains emissions from LULUC. Those are derived from CO2-
emissions from SOC plus above-ground carbon emitted initially,
which is distributed according to West et al. (2004) and Fearnside
(2000). Following West et al. (2004), overall LUC-related CO2 is
almost completely emitted after 20 years and becomes fully
negligible after 30 years in temperate regions. Hence, we adopted
this for the Austrian case. For the tropical region of Brazil we
assumed one half of this duration, 15 years (see Hörtenhuber, 2011).
Similarly, Houghton and Hackler (2001) defined time periods of 5e
20 years for tropical regions and 30 years for temperate regions.
While these periods are somewhat longer than the accounting
periods used for method A (10 years and 20 years), they do not
greatly alter the result of the methods comparison in Figs. 2 and 3.
The LU-related portions were derived in the same way as for model
A for the “rainforest case” as well as for the “old world LUC” case
(see chapter 2.2.1, Brazilian and Austrian LU emissions,
respectively).
2.2.4. System boundaries and allocation method for total GHG
emissions calculation
To quantify the impact of LULUC-related emissions on the total
global warming potential (GWP 100; IPCC, 2007) for the repre-
sentative feedstuffs of Austrian barley and Brazilian extracted
soybean meal (SBME) as imported into Austria, LULUC emissions
from Table 2 were added to emissions from other feedstuff pro-
duction processes (Fig. 1). These include crop cultivation, industrial
food and feed processing, production of mineral fertilisers and
pesticides as well as direct and indirect N2O emissions from soil
(Hörtenhuber et al., 2011). Results for SBME include the emissions
from transport from Brazil to Austria.
Due to the extraction of soybeans, LULUC-related emissions
were allocated to SBME and soy oil based on their lower heating
value, as was done for all other emissions in Fig. 1 that had to be
allocated.
3. Results
Table 2 shows LULUC-related emissions calculated for three
different products: average Austrian barley, certified Brazilian

Fig. 2. Modified “rainforest case” (land use prior to LUC: primary forest only, no
Fig. 1. Total GHG emissions for feedstuffs following different methods’ treatment of grassland) e timeline of cumulative CO2 emissions as calculated by the three different
LULUC-related emissions (kg CO2-eq per kg DM). The underlying accounting period for methods and an underlying carbon release curve. Conversion occurs at the start of year
SBME in the proposed method A is 10 years; no LUC was assumed for Austrian barley. 0.
36 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
Fig. 3. Modified “old world LUC” case (land use prior to LUC: grassland) e timeline of
cumulative CO2 emissions as calculated by the three different methods and an un-
derlying carbon release curve. Conversion occurs at the start of year 0.
solvent-extracted soybean meal (SBME), and average Brazilian
solvent-extracted soybean meal (SBME). Results are calculated with
the three different methods described above. For the proposed
method A, LUC-related emissions reflect a 10 years accounting
period (2002e2011) for Brazilian solvent-extracted soybean meal
(SBME) and a 20 years accounting period (1992e2011) for Austrian
barley.
To demonstrate the effect of the chosen accounting period on
method A results, Table 2 shows Brazilian SBME results for a 20-
year accounting period as well. The emissions based on a 20-year
accounting period are higher than those for the 10-year period by
21 percent and 230 percent for the certified and the average soy-
beans, respectively. This is due to the history of Brazilian LUC,
where annual conversions to cropland were less prevalent in the
last decade compared to the preceding decade (see Table 1). Here,
this effect prevails over a general effect of longer accounting pe-
riods: they distribute one-time LUC emissions over more harvests
and thus would give lower annual LUC emissions.
The region-specific results in method A show 50 percent lower
emissions from LU plus LUC for a certified Brazilian SBME as
compared to the average Brazilian SBME. Certified SBME shows
comparable total emissions between method A and method B, but
average SBME has considerably higher total emissions when
calculated with method A.
In contrast to the proposed method A, method B uses much
longer accounting periods that result in lower annual emissions. In
addition, Method A likely overestimates direct LUC effects of Bra-
zilian soy cultivation by using nationwide cropland data instead of
soy-specific data (see chapter 2.2.1). As a consequence, method A
ascribes a larger LULUC-related CO2 burden to Brazilian soybeans
than method B.
In the case of Austrian barley, method B gives much higher es-
timates than method A. This can be explained by method B using
unspecific carbon stock data concerning small-scale regions
(regarding potential natural vegetation, soil and historical human
or natural disturbances) and by its inclusion of LU-related emis-
sions based on the “loss of sink function” concept.
Unlike method A, Method C does not differentiate between re-
gions with regard to original land uses prior to conversion to
cropland. Therefore, method C gives much lower LULUC emissions
than method A for Brazilian soybeans but higher emissions for
Austrian barley.
Fig. 1 demonstrates how the various LULUC estimates affect the
total GHG budget for the two case studies: LULUC estimates for
Brazilian SBME contribute between 35% and 67% to the overall GHG
budget, while for Austrian barley only the relatively non-specific
methods B and C result in a larger LULUC contribution of 50% and
39%, respectively.
Figs. 2 and 3 show cumulative LULUC-related CO2 emissions
over time. For the “rainforest case” (using data from Brazil; Fig. 2)
and the “old world LUC” case (using data from Austria Fig. 3), we
compare how methods A, B, and C model cumulative CO2-emis-
sions. As described in the materials and methods section, the two
cases were chosen to show large LUC effects in order to illustrate
differences between the methods.
The curves for method A with defined accounting periods reflect
more closely the logarithmic shape of the realistic curves with high
initial carbon losses from biomass and soil to the atmosphere. In
both the Brazilian and the Austrian case, method A results in much
higher cumulative emissions than method B, because the latter
allocates LUC-related CO2 over longer accounting periods than the
proposed method A (see chapter 2.2.2). Method C e which is not
based on region-specific carbon fluxes e gives even lower emis-
sions in the two cases shown.
4. Discussion
In this section we discuss some of the critical differences be-
tween the approaches taken by the selected methods.
4.1. Physically occurring fluxes versus loss of carbon sink function
In method A as developed here, GHG emissions accounted for
should be basically restricted to physically occurring fluxes of
GHGs. Thus it excludes hypothetical fluxes of GHGs. The attempt to
use physically occurring fluxes in method A contrasts with the
approach taken by method B. Its authors ascribe hypothetical
LULUC-related CO2 emissions to land use, arguing that use as
cropland, for example, prevents the sequestration of carbon
through regrowth of the original natural vegetation. The concept is
similar to others; Kool et al. (2009), for example, introduce a “loss of
sink function”. This “loss of sink function” quantifies the reduced
sink capacity of farmland as compared to natural vegetation.
Similarly, Schmidinger and Stehfest (2012) account for a “missed
potential carbon sink”, since on-going land occupation prevents the
carbon emitted during LUC from being sequestered again. Conse-
quently, for products originating from land areas which were
converted to agricultural land long ago, method B will generally
result in higher emission estimates than in method A. In proposing
method A, we argue that GHG emissions from LU should be treated
like any other emissions in LCA, and not in comparison with a hy-
pothetical natural climax vegetation, which would need to be
specified at a high spatial resolution to match the regional approach
taken by method A. We respect the well-established concept that
was developed earlier, for example by Lindeijer et al. (1998) and
Milà i Canals et al. (2007), to quantify various impacts of land use.
But while that approach appears reasonable for hard-to measure
impacts such as biodiversity and the capacity of land to support life,
we consider GHG emissions to be more easily quantifiable.
4.2. Consistency of time horizons
Another concern is a lack of consistency of the time horizon for
GHG emissions if method B is used in LCAs or carbon footprints:
impacts of different GHGs on climate change are made comparable
with the concept of GWP as part of the characterization step in LCA.
A GWP requires for its calculation a reference period that is typi-
cally set to one-hundred years. In our opinion, method B treats CO2
emissions from LUC like a GHG with a lower GWP than fossil CO2.
 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
However, its calculation is based on reference periods that vary
with the land use types involved, and not on the one-hundred year
reference period that would typically be used in the same LCA to
account for emissions of other greenhouse gases. Therefore, using
method B in an LCA or carbon footprint with other GHGs would
lead to an inconsistency in the impact assessment step if other
GHGs than CO2 are to be considered as well.
In contrast to method A, which distributes the LUC-related
carbon release over a physical release time of 10e20 years,
method B distributes over the reference periods of 31e119 years
(Müller-Wenk and Brandão, 2010), arguing that on-going cultiva-
tion also prevents sequestration within the reference period.
4.3. Availability of temporally and spatially resolved data
In order to derive optimal GHG reduction strategies that include
LULUC, we emphasize that a region-specific approach is needed to
quantify impacts as accurately as possible.
For example, the low spatial resolution of the data provided by
Müller-Wenk and Brandão (2010) for method B leads to signifi-
cantly higher LULUC-CO2 emissions for the Austrian case (Fig. 1),
because their data do not account for the absence of net LUC in
Austria.
Additionally, carbon emissions will be underestimated for
products from recently converted agricultural land areas, although
these may eventually emit high CO2 loads, e.g. in the case of
grassland and tropical forests recently converted into agricultural
land (Figs. 2 and 3); this is due to the considerably longer ac-
counting period assumed in method B. This exceeds in many
countries the historically documented periods and introduces large
uncertainties, as historic data on LULUC will frequently not be
available this far back in time.
4.4. Region-specific approach versus global LULUC burdens
According to method C (Vellinga et al., 2013), emissions from
LULUC should be derived from average global emissions, because
total human consumption of all commodities is the driver for LUC.
Because method C derives LULUC-related emissions from a
consideration of average global emissions, it does not differentiate
between different regions when calculating LUC. A comparison of
the region-specific LUC emissions of method A to global average
LUC emissions of method C shows that the differences are
considerable (Fig. 1 and Table 2). They are comparable in magnitude
to GHG emissions from other agricultural processes (from soil,
fuels, etc.). For the “old world LUC” case of European crops where
most of the cropland was converted decades or centuries ago,
globally derived LULUC-values are higher than the region-specific
GHG emissions calculated with method A. Global average LULUC
emissions calculated by method C will underestimate actual LUC-
related CO2 emissions if large amounts of CO2 are emitted imme-
diately during LUC and before a new equilibrium in SOC has been
established. With this approach, no specific mitigation measures
can be developed.
Furthermore, Vellinga et al. (2013) characterise the land use per
unit of crop harvested as a key issue (i.e. low yields or poor feed
conversions cause high LUC emission). From a global point of view,
efficient land use (described by yield per ha) is certainly indirectly
related to LUC, but when considering a specific product from a
specific region, inefficient land use will not automatically increase
LUC within a relevant period. We assume that indirect LUC is not
only connected to inefficient use of cropland, but also to market
dynamics which influence land demand, as do changes in con-
sumption habits and the growing demand for bioenergy and
additional drivers. While the proposed method A also includes the
37
efficiency of land use allocated to regional yields, it provides
regional LULUC emissions.
4.5. Accounting period
The most intensely debated point about the use of direct LUC
emission methods is the setting of a suitable accounting period, the
period over which the instantaneous LUC emissions are attributed
to land use (see Ponsioen and Blonk, 2012). The choice of ac-
counting periods obviously has a strong effect on the LULUC
emissions (see soybean results from method A in Table 2; chapter
3). We propose accounting periods (10 and 20 years) that consider
actually occurring emissions linked to the carbon cycles in soil.
We argue that accounting periods should not exceed the period
during which most of the LUC-related emissions to the atmosphere
occur, because an accounting period that covers a long period of
agricultural use frequently cannot be estimated with reasonable
certainty due to a lack of historic data.
On the other hand, shorter accounting periods than in the
proposed method A have been mentioned in literature (Dalgaard
et al., 2008), including an allocation of all LUC emissions to the
first year crop following LUC. However, this would mean that
converted areas no longer share the emissions from LUC after such
a short accounting period has ended despite on-going emission
fluxes.
4.6. The burden of emission reductions: agricultural LCAs and the
general context
This discussion touches on the on-going argument on sharing
the burden of GHG abatement generally. Who shall own the right to
release GHGs? Classically, the “grandfathering principle” has been
used, which accepts a current situation as given and thus assigns a
permanent right of pollution. In a similar way, method A proposed
here suggests to maintain a certain status of agricultural land
development. By contrast, an alternate way of sharing GHG
abatement has been suggested to also consider the historic
accountability, which has become known in policy debate as the
“Brazilian proposal” (see Rosa et al., 2003 or Neumayer, 2000). If the
“Brazilian proposal” were implemented, it would grant each
country, specifically developing countries, the right to emit GHGs
up to the levels industrialized countries have emitted in the past.
Further emission rights should then be equally shared between
countries. Obviously this discussion is partially guided by policy
interests which will also influence the perception of potential
strong points and shortcomings of the approaches discussed
herein. While we believe that ultimately an approach that is based
on actual physical fluxes needs to prevail also for the LULUC in LCA,
this topic merits further in-depth discussion in a very transparent
manner.
5. Conclusion
We propose a region-specific method for the estimation of LUC-
related carbon emissions. This appears to be a feasible way to
quantify mitigation strategies for LUC-related GHG emissions, even
if they do not yet include iLUC-effects. In our opinion, methods for
calculating LULUC emissions should be based on physically occur-
ring fluxes as far as possible. This implies that hypothetical fluxes
shall not be included in LCAs. While we still account for the eco-
nomic motivation that drives LUC by assigning LUC emissions to the
subsequent land use, our choice of the accounting period is
informed by the duration of LUC-induced soil carbon
disequilibrium.
38 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Gwendolyn Rudolph, Theresia Mar-
kut, Michaela Theurl, Dr. Christian Schader and other colleagues
from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the Uni-
versity of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna for many
discussions and their inputs to this paper. The authors would also
like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their valuable com-
ments on an earlier version of this paper.
References
Anderl, M., Freudenschuß, A., Friedrich, A., Haider, S., Jobstmann, H., Köther, T.,
Kriech, M., Kuschel, V., Lampert, C., Pazdernik, K., Poupa, S., Purzner, M.,
Sporer, M., Schodl, B., Stranner, G., Schwaiger, E., Seuss, K., Weiss, P., Wieser, M.,
Zechmeister, A., Zethner, G., 2012. Austria’s National Inventory Report 2012.
Submission under the. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change and under the Kyoto Protocol, Vienna, Austria, ISBN 978-3-99004-184-
0, p. 746.
Avissar, R., Werth, D., 2005. Global hydroclimatological teleconnections resulting
from tropical deforestation. J. Hydrometeorol. 6, 134e145.
BSI, (British Standard Institute), 2011. PAS 2050:2011. Specification for the Assess-
ment of the Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Goods and Services. Lon-
don, U.K., p. 38.
Butler, R.A., 2012. Deforestation in the Amazon. http://www.mongabay.com/brazil.
html (accessed 04.10.13.).
Cederberg, C., Persson, U.M., Neovius, K., Molander, S., Clift, R., 2011. Including
carbon emissions from deforestation in the carbon footprint of Brazilian beef.
Environ. Sci. Technol. 45 (5), 1773e1779.
Cerri, C.C., Maia, S.M.F., Galdos, M.V., Cerri, C.E.P., Feigl, B.J., Bernoux, M., 2009.
Brazilian greenhouse gas emissions: the importance of agriculture and live-
stock. Scientia Agricola 66 (6), 831e843.
Dalgaard, R., Schmidt, J.H., 2012. National and Farm Level Carbon Footprint of Milk
e Life Cycle Inventory for Danish and Swedish Milk 2005 at Farm Gate. Arla
Foods, Aarhus, Denmark, p. 105.
Dalgaard, R., Schmidt, J., Halberg, N., Christensen, P., Thrane, M., Pengue, W.A., 2008.
LCA of soybean meal. Int. J. LCA 13 (3), 240e254.
De Vries, M., de Boer, I.J.M., 2009. Comparing environmental impacts for livestock
products: a review of life cycle assessments. Livestock Sci. 128, 1e11.
Denman, K.L., Brasseur, G., Chidhaisong, A., Ciais, P., Cox, P.M., Dickinson, R.E.,
Hauglustaine, D., Heinze, C., Holland, E., Jacob, D., Lohmann, U.,
Ramachandran, S., da Silva Dias, P.L., Wofsy, S.C., Zhang, X., 2007. Couplings
between changes in the climate system and biogeochemistry. In: Solomon, S.,
Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M., Miller, H.L.
(Eds.), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of the
Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New
York, USA.
EP/EC, (European Parliament and European Council), 2009. Directive 2009/28/EC of
the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the Promotion
of the Use of Energy from Renewable Sources and Amending and Subsequently
Repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC.
European Commission, 2013. Trade Statistics. http://exporthelp.europa.eu/thdapp/
comext/ComextServlet?action¼output&viewName¼eur_
partners&simDate¼20110101&languageId¼en&list_
years¼2011&measureList¼iq&cb_reporters¼EUR27&cb_
partners¼0508&ahscode1¼0201 (accessed 21.03.13.).
FAO, (Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations), 2013. FAO Statis-
tical Databases. http://faostat.fao.org (accessed 15.02.13.).
Fargione, J., Hill, J., Tilman, D., Polasky, S., Hawthorne, P., 2008. Land clearing and the
biofuel carbon debt. Science 319, 1235e1238.
Fearnside, P.M., 2000. Greenhouse gas emissions from land use change in Brazil’s
Amazon region. In: Lal, R., Kimble, J.M., Stewart, B.A. (Eds.), Global Climate
Change and Tropical Ecosystems. Advances in Soil Science. CRC Press, Boca
Raton, Florida, U.S.A, pp. 231e249.
Fearnside, P.M., 2008. The roles and movements of actors in the deforestation of
Brazilian Amazonia. Ecol. Soci. 13 (1), 23 [online]. http://www.
ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss1/art23/ (accessed 29.08.13.).
Garnett, T., 2009. Livestock-related greenhouse gas emissions: impacts and options
for policymakers. Environ. Sci. Policy 12, 491e503.
Harris, N.L., Brown, S., Hagen, S.C., Baccini, A., Houghton, R., 2012. Progress towards
a Consensus on Carbon Emissions from Tropical Deforestation. Winrock Inter-
national and Woods Hole Research Center, p. 12. http://www.whrc.org/news/
pressroom/pdf/WI_WHRC_Policy_Brief_Forest_CarbonEmissions_
finalreportReduced.pdf (accessed 29.08.13.).
Hörtenhuber, S.J., 2011. Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Dairy Production e
Assessment and Effects of Important Drivers. Dissertation thesis. University of
Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria.
Hörtenhuber, S., Lindenthal, T., Amon, B., Markut, T., Kirner, L., Zollitsch, W., 2010.
Greenhouse gas emissions from selected Austrian dairy production systems:
model calculations considering the effects of land use change. Renew. Agric.
Food Syst. 25 (4), 316e329.
Hörtenhuber, S.J., Lindenthal, T., Zollitsch, W., 2011. Reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions from feed supply chains by utilizing regionally produced protein
sources e the case of Austrian dairy production. J. Sci. Food Agric. 91, 1118e1127.
Houghton, R.A., Hackler, J.L., 2001. Carbon Flux to the Atmosphere from Land-use
Changes: 1850 to 1990. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, U.S.
Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
U.S.A.
Hülsbergen, K.-J., Küstermann, B., 2005. Development of an environmental man-
agement system for organic farms and its introduction into practice. In:
Köpke, U., Niggli, U., Neuhoff, D., Cornish, P., Lockeretz, W., Willer, H. (Eds.),
Researching Sustainable Systems, Proceedings of the First Scientific Conference
of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research, September 2005,
Adelaide, Australia, pp. 460e463.
IPCC, 2006. Generic Methodologies Applicable to Multiple Land-use Categories.
Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. In: Agriculture, Forestry
and Other Land Use, vol. 4. http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/
4_Volume4/V4_02_Ch2_Generic.pdf (accessed 24.03.13.).
IPCC, 2007. In: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B.,
Tignor, M., Miller, H.L. (Eds.), Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, U. K. and New York, NY, USA, p. 996.
Kool, A., Blonk, H., Ponsioen, T., Sukkel, W., Vermeer, H., de Vries, J., Hoste, R., 2009.
Carbon Footprints of Conventional and Organic Pork: Assessment of Typical
Production Systems in the Netherlands, Denmark, England and Germany. Blonk
Milieu Advies BV, Gouda, The Netherlands, p. 90.
Küstermann, B., Kainz, M., Hülsbergen, K.-J., 2008. Modeling carbon cycles and
estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from organic and conventional farming
systems. Renew. Agric. Food Syst. 23, 38e52.
Le Quéré, C., et al., 2013. The global carbon budget 1959e2011. Earth Syst. Sci. Data
5, 165e185. http://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/5/165/2013/doi:10.5194/essd-
5-165-2013 (accessed 04.10.13.).
Leip, A., Weiss, F., Wassenaar, T., Perez, I., Fellmann, T., Loudjani, P., Tubiello, F.,
Grandgirard, D., Monni, S., Biala, K., 2010. Evaluation of the Livestock Sector’s
Contribution to the EU Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GGELS). Ispra, Joint Research
Centre (JRC), European Commission, p. 323.
Lindeijer, E.W., van Kampen, M., Fraanje, P.J., van Dobben, H.F., Nabuurs, G.J.,
Schouwenberg, E.P.A.G., Prins, A.H., Dankers, N., Leopold, M.F., 1998. Biodiver-
sity and Land Use Indicators for Land Use Impacts in LCA. Ministerie V&W.
Publicatiereeks Grondstoffen 1998/07, rapport no. W-DWW-98e059.
Macedo, M.N., DeFries, R.S., Morton, D.C., Stickler, C.M., Galford, G.L.,
Shimabukuro, Y.E., 2012. Decoupling of deforestation and soy production in the
southern Amazon during the late 2000s. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109, 1341e
1346.
Meul, M., Ginneberge, C., van Middelaar, C.E., de Boer, I.J.M., Fremaut, D.,
Haesaert, G., 2012. Carbon footprint of five pig diets using three land use change
accounting methods. Livestock Sci. 149 (3), 215e223.
Milà i Canals, L., Bauer, C., Depestele, J., Dubreuil, A., Freiermuth-Knuchel, R.,
Gaillard, G., Michelsen, O., Müller-Wenk, R., Rydgren, B., 2007. Key elements in a
framework for land use impact assessment in LCA. Int. J. LCA 12 (1), 5e15.
Morton, D.C., DeFries, R.S., Shimabukuro, Y.E., Anderson, L.O., Arai, E., del Bon
Espirito-Santo, F., Freitas, R., Morisette, J., 2006. Cropland expansion changes
deforestation dynamics in the southern Brazilian Amazon. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
U.S.A 103 (39), 14637e14641. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/
PMC1600012/pdf/zpq14637.pdf (accessed 26.08.13.).
Müller-Wenk, R., Brandão, M., 2010. Climatic impact of land use in LCA e carbon
transfers between vegetation/soil and air. Int. J. LCA 15 (2), 172e182.
Neumayer, E., 2000. In defence of historical accountability for greenhouse gas
emissions. Ecol. Econ. 33, 185e192.
Overmars, K.P., Stehfest, E., Ros, J.P.M., Prins, A.G., 2011. Indirect land use change
emissions related to EU biofuel consumption: an analysis based on historical
data. Environ. Sci. Policy 14 (3), 248e257.
Plassmann, K., Norton, A., Attarzadeh, N., Jensen, M.P., Brenton, P., Edwards-
Jones, G., 2010. Methodological complexities of product carbon footprinting: a
sensitivity analysis of key variables in a developing country context. Environ.
Sci. Policy 13, 393e404.
Plevin, R., O’Hare, M., Jones, A., Torn, M., Gibbs, H., 2010. Greenhouse gas emissions
from biofuels’ indirect land use change are uncertain, but may be much greater
than previously estimated. Environ. Sci. Technol. 44, 8015e8021.
Ponsioen, T.C., Blonk, T.J., 2012. Calculating land use change in carbon footprints of
agricultural products as an impact of current land use. J. Clean. Prod. 28, 120e
126.
Poruschi, L., Dhakal, S., Canadell, J., 2010. Global Carbon Project Report No. 7 e Ten
Years of Advancing Knowledge on the Global Carbon Cycle and its Management.
Global Carbon Project, Tsukuba, Japan, p. 14. http://www.globalcarbonproject.
org/global/pdf/GCP_10years_med_res.pdf (accessed 26.08.13.).
ProForest, 2004. The Basel Criteria for Responsible Soy Production. http://www.
proforest.net/objects/publications/basel-criteria-august-04.pdf (accessed
25.05.12.).
Rosa, L.P., Muylaert, M.S., de Campos, C.P., 2003. The Brazilian Proposal and its
Scientific and Methodological Aspects. Working Draft. International Institute for
Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, Canada, p. 11. http://www.iisd.org/cckn/
pdf/brazil.pdf (accessed 27.08.13.).
 S. Hörtenhuber et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 73 (2014) 31e39
Sanchez, S.T., Woods, J., Akhurst, M., Brander, M., O’Hare, M., Dawson, T.P., Liska, A.,
Malpas, R., 2012. Accounting for indirect land use change in the life cycle
assessment of biofuel supply chains. J. R. Soc. Interface 9, 1105e1119.
Schmidinger, K., Stehfest, E., 2012. Including CO2 implications of land occupation in
LCAs e method and example for livestock products. Int. J. LCA 17 (8), 962e972.
Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R.A., Dong, F., Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J., Tokgoz, S.,
Hayes, D., Yu, T.-H., 2008. Use of U.S. Croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse
gases through emissions from land use change. Science 319, 1238e1240.
ten Brink, P., Berghöfer, A., Schröter-Schlaack, C., Sukhdev, P., Vakrou, A., White, S.,
Wittmer, H., 2009. TEEB e the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for
National and International Policy Makers 2009. United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP).
UNIDO, (United Nations Industrial Development Organization), 2010. Adding Value
to Traditional Products of Regional Origin, p. 71. http://www.unido.org/
fileadmin/user_media/Publications/Pub_free/Adding_value_to_traditional_
products_of_regional_origin.pdf (accessed 27.08.13.).
Van Middelaar, C.E., van Cederberg, C., Vellinga, T., Werf, H.G., de Boer, I.M., 2013.
Exploring variability in methods and data sensitivity in carbon footprints of
feed ingredients. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 768e782.
Vellinga, T.V., Blonk, H., Marinussen, M., van Zeist, W.J., de Boer, I.J.M., Starmans, D.,
2013. Methodology Used in FeedPrint: A Tool Quantifying Greenhouse Gas
39
Emissions of Feed Production and Utilization. Report 674. Wageningen UR
Livestock Research, p. 108. http://edepot.wur.nl/254098 (accessed 26.08.13.).
Watson, R.T., Noble, I.R., Bolin, B., Ravindranath, N.H., Verardo, D.J., Dokken, D.J.,
2000. Land Use, Land-use Change, and Forestry e a Special Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge.
Weiss, F., Leip, A., 2012. Greenhouse gas emissions from the EU livestock sector: a
life cycle assessment carried out with the CAPRI model. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ.
149 (0), 124e134.
West, T.O., Marland, G., Post, W.M., King, A.W., Jain, A.K., Andrasko, K., 2004. Carbon
management response curves: estimates of temporal carbon dynamics. Envi-
ron. Manage. 33 (4), 507e518.
Williams, A.G., Audsley, E., Chatterton, J.C., Murphy-Bokern, D., Brander, M., 2010.
Greenhouse gas emissions from UK food and drink consumption by systems
LCA: current and possible futures. In: LCA Food 2010, VII International Con-
ference on Life Cycle Assessment in the Agri-food Sector, 22 to 24 September,
Bari, Italy, pp. 363e368.
Zaks, D.P.M., Barford, C.C., Ramankutty, N., Foley, J.A., 2009. Producer and con-
sumer responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural pro-
duction e a perspective from the Brazilian Amazon. Environ. Res. Lett. 4 (4),
044010.