A better way to predict the environmental
impacts of agricultural production
BY
TAYLOR KUBOTA
Consumer goods companies
often rely on life-cycle assessments (LCA) to figure out the potential
consequences of how they design products and source ingredients. This kind of assessment, while sophisticated, often lacks detail about how the products affect natural resources such as land, water and biodiversity.
A team of researchers
from Stanford University and the University of Minnesota, in a partnership
called the Natural Capital Project, along with researchers
from Unilever’s Safety and Environmental Assurance Centre, developed a new kind
of assessment to integrate these impacts in a more detailed way.
They call it Land Use Change Improved Life Cycle Assessment, or LUCI-LCA. It’s designed to help researchers or companies more accurately predict impacts of new designs and sourcing.
The researchers tested
this new LCA by evaluating the potential environmental impacts of two
bio-plastic products that could be produced from sugarcane grown in Mato
Grosso, Brazil, or from corn grown in Iowa.
Their approach – which
includes more accurate data about the regional land composition than the
traditional LCA – came to different conclusions about which option would be
more environmentally responsible. The group published the results in
the April 21 issue of Nature Communications.
“The size and reach of
multinational companies is stunning, on par with that of many nations,” said Gretchen
Daily, professor of biology at Stanford and senior author of the
paper. “When we think about how to bring human activities into balance with
what Earth can sustain, corporations have a major role to play in decoupling
economic growth from environmental impact.”
Improving impact assessment
Life-cycle assessment
offers a systematic way of determining potential environmental impacts of a
product from source materials to disposal. Results from these assessments often
inform decisions companies make about product design, material and technology
choices and sourcing strategies.
An incomplete or
inaccurate assessment could lead to well-intentioned but environmentally
damaging decisions.
One problem with a
standard life cycle assessment is that it represents the average land
composition of the country from which materials will be sourced.
So, in this case, it
assumes that Mato Grosso contains the same proportion of rainforest as all of
Brazil, and that sourcing sugarcane from that state would lead to deforestation
of the Amazon.
Daily and her colleagues
made improvements that allow for more refined assessment using data relevant to
the exact regions from which materials would likely be sourced, taking into
account predictions about future impacts to the environment.
“In reality, from the
modeling that we did, it looked like most of the expansion of agriculture in
Mato Grosso would happen in the savannah,” said Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer,
research associate at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and
lead author of the study. “Whereas in Iowa, if any expansion happens, it will
likely mean expanding into forest.”
While the standard LCA
showed that the Mato Grosso sugarcane would lead to more CO2 in
the atmosphere, this more spatially sensitive LCA found that the carbon
footprint of the Iowan corn was larger.
In addition, while the
traditional LCA found that the corn would result in more water use than the
sugarcane, the new LCA found that the sugarcane would use more – 900 percent
more.
“This work has major implications
for anybody involved in product innovation, commodity sourcing or policy
setting for new land development,” said Ryan Noe, a researcher with the
National Capital Project at University of Minnesota and co-author of the paper.
“Where that sourcing comes from matters and it’s not really being captured with
the approaches being used.”
Careful consumption
The researchers hope
that the stark and significant differences between the results of the two LCAs
will encourage companies and policymakers to adopt the new approach for
decision-making.
“Our ultimate mission is
to get this kind of information – this spatially explicit value of nature – to
people and to have the impact on natural capital included in as many different
kinds of decisions as possible,” Chaplin-Kramer said.
It took the team
substantial time and effort to pull together the data necessary for this case
study. But with increased interest, they believe they could develop a more
streamlined tool that would require little manual work.
“There’s more work at some levels – but this is exactly the kind of 21st-century work that responsible corporations are pursuing to promote green growth and a sustainable human enterprise,” Daily said.
“In the short run, this approach will reduce costs and risks. In the long run, it is utterly key to survival.”
“There’s more work at some levels – but this is exactly the kind of 21st-century work that responsible corporations are pursuing to promote green growth and a sustainable human enterprise,” Daily said.
“In the short run, this approach will reduce costs and risks. In the long run, it is utterly key to survival.”
Additional Stanford
co-authors include Perrine Hamel, Benjamin Bryant, Virginia Kowal, Richard
Sharp and Mary Ruckelshaus from the Woods Institute for the Environment and the
Natural Capital Project. Other co-authors are Stephen Polasky from the
University of Minnesota and the Natural Capital project; and Carina Mueller,
Sarah Sim, Giles Rigarlsford, Michal Kulak, Julie Clavreul and Edward Price
from Unilever. Daily is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute
for the Environment.
This research was funded
by Unilever and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.