Environmental life cycle impact assessment of fresh California strawberries: A full supply chain perspective

Abstract

A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) study was conducted for an open-field strawberry (strb) produced in California. The evaluation covered the full supply chain of strawberry, which also included the impacts of food waste generated at each phase of the life cycle. The supply chain included farming, retail, consumption, and end-of-life treatments of waste generated. Data on strawberry farming (included cultivation, harvest and packaging) were collected from the selected farms, with an average strawberry acreage of 138 acres. The defined functional unit (FU) was 1 kg-strb, consumed at the consumer stage, including food waste. Life cycle inventory (LCI) data for post-farm (retail and consumer stage) were based on the available literature and engineering estimates. The ReCiPe 2016 method was used to calculate the potential environmental impacts. The total GHG emissions calculated per FU was 1.45 kg CO 2eq ; freshwater eutrophication potential was 4.43*10 −4 kg P eq /FU, fossil resource scarcity was 0.46 kg oil eq /FU. Transportation contributed to about 32% of the total GHG emissions, the use of all forms of plastics (including packaging PET, labels, and field plastics) contributed 18% of the total GHG emissions, while their treatments contributed ∼1% (including the credits from the related recycling process). The use of corrugated boxes contributed 15% of the GHG emissions, while end-of-life treatment provided credits by –7% of the total impact. Food waste treatment contributed ∼15% to the total GHG emissions. For fossil resource scarcity, cultivation along with packaging contributed 71% of the total impact, followed by retail and consumer (25% and 11%, respectively), which was mainly due to transportation. Results showed that the use of recycled packaging materials and the adoption of a suitable recycling process are effective strategies to lower the environmental impacts. The study also showed that with changes in crop yields by ±10%, as compared to the reported yields, most of the selected environmental impacts could change by ± 3–4%, while water consumption would vary by −9% (with +10% yield increase) and increase by 11% (with −10% yield). Reducing food waste by 10% could lower the total GHG emissions by around 1%. • Cradle-to-grave environmental performance of open-field strawberry analyzed. • Farm based life cycle inventory utilized the data collected from California-based farms. • Environmental impacts and hotspot evaluations are discussed for the supply chain. • Packaging and transportation were the top contributors to the supply chain impacts.