Edge Environment participated in the Agricultural LCA in Australia Workshop on the 19th of July 2013. The workshop was organised by the AusLCI Agriculture sector working group, a collaboration of LCA practitioners and researchers interested in agriculture-based supply chains.
The Australian Agricultural Life Cycle Inventory (AusAgLCI) database
The AusLCI Agriculture sector working group is developing the Australian Agricultural Life Cycle Inventory (AusAgLCI) database, which is due to be released later this year. This database will constitute the largest localised source of life cycle information for Australian agricultural products, providing underlying data to undertake LCA based environmental assessments of primary products. Ultimately this will aid producers to meet marketing requirements and allow them to benchmark their production in global markets.
International perspectives
The workshop focused on building connections between LCA practitioners and industry. International participants gave their viewpoints on industry use of LCA to respond to sustainability challenges. Greg Thoma (Univ. of Arkansas, USA) mentioned that the increase in sustainability activity in the US agrifood sector is being driven by the retail sector (i.e. Walmart and The Sustainability Consortium), where LCA is being used as a starting point to understand priority supply chain hotspots. On the other side, Hannele Pulkkinen (MTT Agrifood Research, Finland) noted that in Finland, food companies rather than retailers are driving the use of LCA. This has resulted in an abundance of labels, making the harmonisation of assessment methodologies and consistency in the communication of information a priority.
Australian perspectives
Australian perspectives were highlighted from sugar, cotton, grains, horticulture and seafood industry representatives. Brett Carroll from Wilmar Sugar identified that sugar industry is not getting strong signals from the international market around sustainability yet, but that LCA is viewed as a useful tool to identify environmental hotspots and opportunities (e.g. as an source of green energy). Certification within the sugar industry faces challenges related to the traceability of the product, which is sold as a bulk commodity.
LCA challenges
Allan Williams (Cotton Research and Development Corporation) and Tanya Robinson (Grains Research and Development Corporation) also highlighted the traceability issues for bulk commodities. For cotton, it is common to combine different production sources before spinning, which, united with the many processes between farm gate and finished product, make it difficult to trace the supply chain of the cotton used in a particular garment.
A key concept from the workshop was that it is important for LCA to tell the story rather than focus on numbers. Information derived through LCA provides a snapshot in time. However, when considering the potential of the agricultural industry to achieve rapid environmental efficiencies, it is important to consider LCA as a tool to show improvements over time, increase transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain, and ultimately acknowledge ‘how much better we’ve become’.