# Assessing the environmental impact of a riding school centre by LCA

Paul Lardoux, Louise Forteau, Agata Rzekęć, Caroline Malnoe, Joël Aubin,

Anne-Lise Pépin, Julie Auberger

► To cite this version:

Paul Lardoux, Louise Forteau, Agata Rzekęć, Caroline Malnoe, Joël Aubin, et al.. Assessing the environmental impact of a riding school centre by LCA. CIAG Evaluation multicritère pour accompagner les transitions, Sep 2025, Beauvais, France. hal-05312293

HAL Id: hal-05312293

https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05312293v1

Submitted on 13 Oct 2025

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# Assessing the environmental impact of a riding school centre by LCA

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**Co-authors:** Lardoux Paulª, Forteau Louiseᵇ, Rzekec Agataᶜ, Malnoë Carolineª, Aubin Joëlª, Pépin Anne-Liseᶜ, Auberger Julieª

ªUMR SAS, INRAE, 35042, Rennes, France; ᵇO2m Consultancy, 35000, Rennes, France; ᶜIFCE, 49400, Saumur, France

## Context

* Environmental impact of food animal product : known and quantified with LCA

* No data on environmental impact of equine activities

## Objective

* Assessing the environmental impact of a riding school centre by LCA

## Materials

* Adaptation of MEANS-InOut to equine system : new data forms, emission models, links between equine phases and infrastructures background LCIs

* Tools : MEANS-InOut v5.1 and SimaPro v9.6

* Background databases : AGB 3.1.1 and Ecoinvent 3.9.1

* Characterization method : EF 3.1

## Results

## Data collection

* Survey to the riding school owner for equine phase present on farm

* Literature and horse expert estimates for equine phases off-farm (growing and retirement phases)

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<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Fig1 : Equine System boundary</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Fig2 : LCA steps and interoperability between tools</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Fig3 : Contributions of each sector on the main impact category of an hour of equestrian lesson</figcaption></figure>

## Methods

* Function of system: Provide equine activities to customers

* FU = Practice 1 h of equestrian activity

* Original methodological framework based on Agribalyse (Lardoux et al. 2025, submitted)

## Conclusion and perspective

* 96 % of French equine system can be modelled with MEANS-InOut LCA tool

* Recreational and sporting activities have environmental impact

* No comparison with literature is possible because no LCA data available on recreational and sporting activities yet

* Climate change : 14.1 kg CO₂ eq. and Water Use : 4.21 m³ eq. per hour of equestrian lesson

* Main contributor = Direct emissions and feed inputs

* 38% of impact = non-productive phase (growing, retirement)

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