Assessing the economic and environmental performance of cleaner production practices in eucalyptus planted forests using life cycle assessment

Abstract

Soil and climatic conditions allied to advanced forestry technologies have enabled the development of planted forests in some regions of Brazil with some of the highest productivity rates in the world. However, the intense use of agricultural inputs and mechanization of production and wood transportation imply significant environmental impacts, such as the emission of carbon and nitrogen compounds. The purpose of this paper is to compare a model of an Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry System with more conventional eucalyptus forestry using a Cleaner Production approach to demonstrate the economic and environmental advantages of such a system. This is based on an environmental, energy, and economic analysis integrating Life Cycle Assessment and Cleaner Production approaches. Life Cycle Inventories consist of primary data obtained from the states of Bahia, Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais in Brazil, in partnership with Forestry Producers and a Forestry Company, which is the largest producer of hardwood pulp in the world. The inventories of conventional short-cycle eucalyptus production systems to supply the Forestry Company were quantified from seedling preparation to harvesting operations. The following production systems were evaluated: Reference system – Planting + Replanting (S1); Planting + Regrowth (S2), and Crop-Livestock-Forestry (S3). The adoption of CP measures in S3 reduced the use of inputs by 35% and increased gross revenue compared to S1. The processes that most contributed to the impact categories analyzed were soil preparation, emissions of inputs used in the field, and mechanized harvesting. However, biogenic carbon sequestration included −783 kg CO2 eq/m3 of wood for S1. The S2 system had lower impacts compared to S1. Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry System - S3 showed a better environmental performance for most of the impact categories analyzed and presented a better financial return compared with S1 and S2. The implementation of the CP measures in S3 provides an immediate payback. Based on the conditions of this study, the CP strategy for silviculture is an economically viable option to increase the net CO2 sequestration of forest production. This research intends to promote the study of eucalyptus forest production under tropical conditions, using the combined use of LCA and CP approach presented in this study from primary data. The CP and LCA integration provided methodological advances and more detailed information on the environmental performance of short-cycle eucalyptus production by identifying operational practices for the analyzed systems yielding environmental and financial gains. CP proved to be effective in providing information for decision-making at the process level without losing the broader view of the environmental performance of the analyzed product systems.