Abstract
Climate change is an important global environmental threat. Agriculture aggravates climate change by increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and in response, climate change reduces agricultural productivity. Consequently, the modern agricultural development mode has progressively transformed into a kind of sustainable development mode. This study aimed to determine the environmental impact and carbon footprint of Dongshan tea from Yilan County. Environmental impact was assessed with use of SimaPro version 8.0.2 and IMPACT2002+. Results showed that climate change has the largest impact upon it in general, followed by human health, natural resources, and ecosystem quality. Furthermore, with use of the IPCC 2007 100a method for carbon footprint of products (CFP), conventional tea was found to have a CFP of 7.035 kgCO2-e, and its main contributors are the raw material (35.15%) and consumer use (45.58%) phases. From this case study, we found that the hotspots of the life cycle of environmental impact of Taiwanese tea mainly come from fertilizer input during the raw material phase, electricity use during manufacturing, and electricity use during water boiling in the consumer use phase (which contributes the largest impact). We propose the ways for consumers to use of highly efficient boiling water facilities and heating preservation, and the government must market the use of organic fertilizers in the national policy subsidies, and farmers have to prudent use of fertilizers and promote the use of local raw fertilizers, and engagement in direct sales for reducing the environmental impacts and costs of agricultural products and thus advancing sustainable agriculture development.
Highlights
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report states that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activity have been the major factor for global warming since the middle of the 20th century
The calculation was performed via the Figure shows the tea, and the calculation was performed via the IMPACT 2002+ assessment method
This study investigated the environmental impact of Taiwanese Dongshan tea, the carbon footprint assessment of growth in Yilan, the consumption of of teaTaiwanese in Taipei, covering raw
Summary
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report states that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activity have been the major factor for global warming since the middle of the 20th century. FAO [2] predicts a population of nine billion people by 2050, and to have sufficient food supply, agricultural production should increase by 60% by the same year. This assumption has resulted in the over-intensification of agriculture production systems that fail to consider the environmental impact of agricultural activities, causing several adverse effects on environment, such as water pollution, Energies 2019, 12, 138; doi:10.3390/en12010138 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies. Environmental sustainability is a challenge for agriculture, given that the latter is a major contributor of global environmental impacts, especially land degradation, freshwater depletion, nutrient and pesticide pollution, and GHG emissions [5,6]. Weakening the risks posed by climate change to food security is a major challenge
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