Abstract
Italian floriculture is facing structural changes. Possible options to maintain competitiveness of the involved companies include promotion of added values, from local production to environmental sustainability. To quantify value and benefits of cleaner production processes and choices, a holistic view is necessary and could be provided by life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Previous studies on ornamental products generally focused on data from one company or a small sample. The aim of this study was a gate-to-gate life cycle assessment of two ornamental species, cyclamen (Cyclamen persicum Mill.) and zonal geranium (Pelargonium × hortorum Bailey), using data from a sample of 20 companies belonging to a floriculture district in the Treviso, Veneto region. We also assessed the potential benefits of the environmental impact of alternative management choices regarding plant protection and reuse of composted waste biomass. Life cycle impact assessment showed higher impact scores for the zonal geranium, mainly as a consequence of greenhouse heating with fossil fuels. This factor, along with higher uniformity of production practices and technological levels of equipment, translated to a lower variability in comparison with cyclamen production, which showed a wider results range, in particular for eutrophication, acidification and human toxicity potential. The application of integrated pest management with cyclamen had significant benefits by reducing acidification and human toxicity, while reducing use of mineral nutrients through amending growing media with compost resulted in a reduction in eutrophication potential. Similar achievable benefits for zonal geranium were not observed because of the dominant contribution of energy inputs.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
As highlighted in the analysis of relative contributions (Figures 1 and 2), heating with fossil fuels contributed the greatest to the inputs of production. This factor, together with the greater uniformity found for some management choices in zonal geranium, influenced the variability, which showed minor fluctuations around average values compared to cyclamen
With the exclusion of heating, the categories with the greatest weight were the greenhouse structure and coverage that contributed over 60% in the fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity (FWAE), human toxicity (HT) and terrestrial ecotoxicity (TE) categories, the pot that contributed over 51% in the acidification potential (AP) and
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Ornamental plant production is a specialized and intensive agricultural sector that includes a wide range of outputs, such as cut flowers, nursery stock, potted flowering or leafy plants, bulbs and tubers. Europe is the largest consumer market, with Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy as leading consumers. Is an important producer, having over 14,000 companies with a GSP of over 1125 million € [1]. This sector has a complex structure, with a few regions having districts specialized in some sections of the production chain
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