# Environmental impacts of innovative sustainable agri-food value chains: rights, duties and potentialities of Life Cycle Assessment

Samuel Le Féon, Caroline Pénicaud, Gwenola Yannou-Le Bris, Joël Aubin, Karin Östergren, Kavitha Shanmugam

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

## To cite this version:

Samuel Le Féon, Caroline Pénicaud, Gwenola Yannou-Le Bris, Joël Aubin, Karin Östergren, et al. "Environmental impacts of innovative sustainable agri-food value chains: rights, duties and potentialities of Life Cycle Assessment." EFFoST International Conference 2022, Nov 2022, Dublin, Ireland. hal-03866705

HAL Id: hal-03866705

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-03866705

Submitted on 22 Nov 2022

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>
# Environmental impacts of innovative sustainable agri-food value chains: rights, duties and potentialities of Life Cycle Assessment

S. Le Féon*¹, C. Pénicaud¹, G. Yannou-Le Bris¹, J. Aubin², K. Östergren³, K. Shanmugam³

1 Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, UMR SayFood, 91120, Palaiseau, France

2 UMR SAS, INRAE, Institut Agro, 65 rue de Saint Brieuc, 35042, Rennes, France

3 RISE-Research Institutes of Sweden, Agrifood and Bioscience, Ideon Gateway, SE-22370 Lund, Sweden

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

R.L.S.

université
PARIS-SACLAY

AgroParisTech

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

RÉPUBLIQUE
FRANÇAISE

Liberté
Egalité
Fraternité

INRAE

## CONTEXT & OBJECTIVE

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is often used to assess and claim sustainability of food innovations. By using LCA iteratively it can also serve as tool for eco-design.

At the same time, lack of knowledge of the methodology by the stakeholders can lead to:

- Overestimate its abilities (e.g. to deal with an issue the method is not designed for)

- Underestimate its capacities (e.g. using it as a posteriori validation rather than including it during the development)

Using 3 case studies, we confronted the first results of the LCA to the initial thinking and expectations of the stakeholders. In regards with this confrontation, we expose:

- The next steps for the use of LCA in the following of the development of the innovations

- The eventual necessity to complement LCA with other methods, tools or indicators

## CASE STUDIES OVERVIEW

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

**Innovation:** design of a packaging machine for small and mid-size actors in the food sector

**Technical objectives:** packaging of liquids or mashed products adapted to small actors, meeting high hygienic standards

**Environmental a priori:** less energy and water consumptions than regular systems, and sustainable packaging material leading to less environmental impacts

**Current situations:** (A) Small-scale (small farmer who produces apple juice and compote) and (B) Large-scale (company that produces soups and sauces)

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

**Innovation:** a new fermented whey-based drink

**Technical objectives:** valorise whey wasted in small dairies to produce a new drink distributed with a zero-waste strategy

**Environmental a priori:** reduction of the environmental impacts by avoiding the treatment of whey

**Current situation:** (C) Dairy that produces French PDO cheeses (mainly Comté and Morbier)

## LCA RESULTS FOR THE CURRENT VALUE CHAIN

### A - Small farmer who produces juice and compote

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Environmental impacts</th><th colspan="7">Life cycle stages</th></tr><tr><th>Apple production</th><th>Calibration and storage</th><th>Juice - processing and packaging</th><th>Compote - processing and packaging</th><th>Retail</th><th>Consuming</th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Climate change</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Ionising radiation</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Air pollution</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Acidification</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Eutrophication</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Land use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Water use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Resource use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

### B - Company that produces soups and sauces

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

Bars are proportional to the contribution of the life cycle stage for the environmental impact

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Environmental impacts</th><th colspan="4">Life cycle stages</th></tr><tr><th>Production of raw ingredients</th><th>Cooking</th><th>Sterilization</th><th>Packaging</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Climate change</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Ionising radiation</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Air pollution</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Acidification</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Eutrophication</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Land use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Water use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Resource use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

### C - Dairy that produces French PDO cheeses

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Environmental impacts</th><th colspan="4">Life cycle stages</th></tr><tr><th>Milk production</th><th>At cheese factory</th><th>Whey valorization</th><th>Transports</th><th>Wastewater treatment</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Climate change</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Ionising radiation</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Air pollution</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Acidification</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Eutrophication</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Land use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Water use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Resource use</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

## ARE LCA RESULTS FOR THE CURRENT VALUE CHAINS CONFIRM THE A PRIORI ENVIRONMENTAL POTENTIALS?

YES

Process and packaging highly contributes to environmental impacts, confirming the potential interest of the machine

NO

Environmental impacts are mostly due to the production of raw ingredients and the initial expectations of the machine (less energy, water and new packaging) will not change that

LCA shows very low impacts related to wastewater treatment (of water and acid whey) then the valorisation of the acid whey is not a major lever to reduce the environmental impacts of the value chain

## CAN THE INNOVATION HELP WITH THE IDENTIFIED ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES?

YES (MAYBE!)

Let's prove it by assessing the environmental impacts of future value chain (following different implementation scenarios)

To investigate: some ingredients can be added to bring back a function removed by the process (e.g. texture). By preserving ingredient properties, can the machine help to modify the recipes (especially remove the impacting ingredients)?

NO (BUT!)

The innovation will not modify the environmental impacts of the value chain. But (1) this should be complemented by other methods as LCA struggles to reflect local issues (e.g., eutrophication) and (2) this could slightly evolve in time (if sweet whey is also valorised into drink)

## HAS THE INNOVATION OTHER SUSTAINABILITY BENEFITS?

YES (PROBABLY!)

Different options are investigated making the innovation not only environmentally sustainable (e.g., machine shared between farmers, crowdfunding to equip the farmer, machine installed in a workshop for disable people)

The machine could be notably used to develop recipes based on locally produced ingredients benefiting to local producers and local economy. Also, working on recipes could bring to more nutritional products.

The drink will be developed locally, where the whey is produced, by a local producer and sold in local organic shops this providing social and economic value creation.

LCA will help to eco-design the new value chain (process and retail)

## CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Innovators can have environmental *a priori* at the beginning of a project that their innovation will improve sustainability by reducing environmental impacts. Providing first LCA results can help to:

(1) confirm the initial thinking then valid the potentiality of the innovation;

(2) deny the initial thinking but reveal new opportunities;

(3) deny the initial thinking (at least within the scope of the LCA).

Contradictions between initial expectations and first LCA results can have a lack of knowledge of the methodology.

- To anticipate the contradictions, we recommend to involve LCA at the early stage of the innovation and work iteratively.

- When innovations aim to develop more sustainable value chains, we recommend to include the value chain in the perimeter of the LCA. If environmental impacts are a priority, this will verify that the innovation makes sense for the particular value chain. If other sustainability dimensions are targeted, this will control that the innovation does not compromise the environment.

- For the full picture, we recommend to use LCA results as a part of an overall sustainability assessment (including social and economy dimensions) making use of multicriteria analysis.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>
# Environmental impacts of innovative sustainable agri-food value chains: rights, duties and potentialities of Life Cycle Assessment

**Samuel Le Féon**<fnref n="1" />, **Caroline Pénicaud**<fnref n="1" />, **Gwenola Yannou-Le Bris**<fnref n="1" />, **Joël Aubin**<fnref n="2" />, **Karin Östergren**<fnref n="3" />, **Kavitha Shanmugam**<fnref n="3" />

## Aim

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is often used to claim sustainability in food innovation projects. Sometimes, its power is overestimated by stakeholders when they define their expectations leading to deceptions and possible mistakes. Sometimes, its capacities are underestimated and LCA is not part of the innovation process but only used for a posteriori validation. This is emphasized by the increasing diversity of innovations (e.g. technological/organisational) and the expansion of LCA in response to this diversity (e.g. organisational/territorial LCA). Facing with the diversity of innovations in Fairchain EU project, we aim to analyse what should reasonably be expected from LCA for each of the 5 case studies (CS) of agrifood value chains.

## Method

By crossing initial expectations of CS stakeholders with potentialities of LCA and first results, we expect to answer the following questions: (1) is LCA suitable to help meeting the claimed sustainability objectives, (2) is it suitable to assess the consequences of their realisation and (3) how LCA should be supplemented or adapted to fulfil these objectives. By doing this on various CS, we define recommendations of usage of LCA by food innovators giving them information on what they can expect – or not – from LCA, in what conditions (e.g. supplemented with other methods).

## Results

Based on Fairchain CS, we discuss LCA capacities and requirements to meet the expectations of stakeholders and the role they should play into LCA process. It comes to recommendations such as, for example, (i) defining adequately the goal and scope of the study in order to produce fair comparisons between current situations, generally optimized, and future situations, non-optimized during development of the innovation and (ii) complementing LCA by other methods when insufficient to evaluate all the environmental impacts, and furthermore the sustainability.

## Conclusion

LCA is a powerful method with multiple possibilities when being involved in research and innovation of food projects. However, initial expectations and choices can lead to impaired usages (missing opportunities, asking wrong questions, not giving answers, giving wrong answers, greenwashing). Based on innovation CS, this work aims to well involve LCA and stakeholders during a project.

Contacts: Samuel Le Féon & Caroline Pénicaud

<footnote n="1">¹ Université Paris-Saclay, INRAE, AgroParisTech, UMR SayFood, 91120, Palaiseau, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² UMR SAS, INRAE, Institut Agro, 65 rue de Saint Brieuc, 35042, Rennes, France</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ RISE-Research Institutes of Sweden, Agrifood and Bioscience, Ideon Gateway, SE-22370 Lund, Sweden</footnote>