ReviewBest practices in life cycle assessment implementation in fisheries. Improving and broadening environmental assessment for seafood production systems
Highlights
► A set of articles were reviewed to analyze LCA development in fishery based seafood products. ► Recent methodological innovations and assumptions were the center of analysis. ► Current trends in all four stages of LCA were examined referred to seafood systems. ► A set of best practices were proposed as a reference base for future studies.
Introduction
Environmental burdens related to seafood production systems have been the center of numerous studies in recent years due to increasing worries regarding the state of world fisheries (Worm et al., 2009) and the uncertain impacts that increasing aquaculture production may generate in different ecosystems (Naylor, Eagle, & Smith, 2003; Read & Fernandes, 2003). Despite supplying the world with roughly 90 million tons of fish in 2009, 32% of fisheries were identified as being overexploited (28%), depleted (3%) or recovering from depletion (1%) in 2008, representing the highest proportion of this segment ever recorded (FAO, 2010). Aquaculture, on the contrary, supplied nations with over 55 million tons of fish, 32% more than in 2004, constituting, therefore, the fastest-growing animal-food-producing sector (FAO, 2006; 2010).
While fisheries struggle to maintain productivity due to overexploitation (Pauly et al., 2002; Pauly, Bennett, Christensen, Tyedmers, & Watson, 2003), growth in seafood demand is being partially satisfied thanks to aquaculture production, even though certain aquaculture techniques create important ecological impact in wild fish supplies (FAO, 2010; Naylor et al., 2000). Therefore, in a scenario in which seafood demand is maintained based on increasing the potential hazards on populations and ecosystems, environmental assessment methodologies appear as appropriate mechanisms to evaluate and supervise the environmental performance of fishing activities. In fact, despite the environmental issues that may affect other important dietary supplies for humans, seafood is the only nutritional group that suffers a potential risk of depletion if current trends do not swing in future decades (Pauly, Christensen, Dalsgaard, Froese, & Torres, 1998; 2003). Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has arisen as a well-known and widely used standardized environmental management tool to analyze the environmental burdens along the life cycle of products and processes (ISO 14040, 2006a, 2006b). It has proved to be a convenient method for quantifying resource use and emissions in a wide range of primary and industrial sectors, including seafood extraction/production and its associated industrial processes (Pelletier et al., 2007).
However, the efficacy of LCA to cover the wide range of environmental impacts potentially linked to fishing still has certain constraints, since many direct impacts on fishing stocks cannot be assessed without further development of the methodology (Pelletier et al., 2007; Ziegler et al., 2011). Consequently, improvements are ongoing to add new impact categories and/or indicators to envelop the unique characteristics of fisheries. Moreover, it is expected that NGOs will take their awareness campaigns a step further with the aim of alerting the population of the environmental risks that underlie fish consumption (Jacquet & Pauly, 2007). Hence, an increasing number of stakeholders in the seafood sector will be willing to analyze and communicate the environmental performance of their products in order to gain market access and competitiveness.
This review focuses on analyzing the main milestones that have been developed in seafood LCA in recent years, including methodological innovations, functional unit (FU) choice, impact category selection, allocation methods or life cycle inventory (LCI) elaboration, with the aim of providing a simple and straightforward guideline to set a common denominator for future seafood system LCA studies. An additional goal of the study is to point out the major innovation pathways that may potentially turn LCA into a more integrated methodology to evaluate the environmental performance of seafood systems. Nevertheless, given the distinct characteristics of aquaculture and wild caught fishing this article focuses exclusively on reviewing those seafood products that are attributable to wild caught ecosystems, so called fisheries, leaving farmed products out of the scope of the manuscript (see Henriksson, Guinée, Kleijn, and de Snoo (2012) for a recent review on LCA of aquaculture systems).
Section snippets
Materials and methods
A group of “meta-reviews” regarding the use of LCA in food sector activities and supply chains proves the applicability and robustness of this methodology to this indispensable sector in human society (Hospido, Davis, Berlin, & Sonesson, 2010; Peacock et al., 2011; Poritosh et al., 2009). As abovementioned, LCA links the environmental burdens of a given system or process to an FU. These contribute to a set of impact categories, such as acidification, global warming, human toxicity or
LCA studies of fisheries worldwide
This group of case studies, which focuses on the environmental characterization of fisheries, is made up of the widest set of publications. In fact, they not only represent the oldest cluster of publications, but also the most prolific and heterogeneous. Hence, these LCA studies pioneered in the early stages of seafood LCA, when the number of analyzed fisheries and species was low, focusing mainly on trawling and purse seining fleets that captured high and medium economic value fishing species
Key methodological issues on seafood LCA and related developments
Most of the included case studies assume the general ISO specifications to compute LCA in fisheries and food products (ISO, 2006a), although there is still room for improvement and new developments when LCA is applied to this particular sector (see Methodological advances). In fact, a series of differences can be observed when analyzing case studies independently depending on the carried out assumptions (see Methodological assumptions in LCA).
In addition, a set of non-methodological assumptions
Best practices in seafood production systems
The wide set of methodological issues covered in this review suggests a strong proliferation of LCA studies in fishery systems, supporting and confirming the potentiality of this tool for reporting environmental profiles within this specific sector, as stated by Pelletier et al. (2007). Despite the buoyancy of the methodology, it is important to point out the limited number of articles that have been published up to date, especially when considering the reduced range of nations and research
Conclusions and perspectives
The use of LCA in food systems has been widely and increasingly used by researchers in order to obtain integrated environmental impact results, with aim of better understanding a key sector in human activities and in global economy. Fisheries and the use of their catch as seafood have arisen as important research fields due to the complex nature of marine systems and of seafood supply chains. Moreover, the difficulty to transform certain fishery-specific impacts on the ecosystem into life cycle
Acknowledgments
This review article was developed thanks to funding from the Galician Government (Project reference: GRC 2010/37). Almudena Hospido and Ian Vázquez-Rowe also wish to thank the Galician Government for financial support (Isidro Parga Pondal and María Barbeito programmes, respectively).
References (93)
- et al.
Evaluation of sampling methods to quantify discarded fish using data collected during discards project by Northern Ireland, England and Spain
Fisheries Research
(2001) - et al.
Characterisation of the environmental impact of a turbot (Scophtalmus maximus) re-circulating production systems using life cycle assessment
Aquaculture
(2006) - et al.
Sustainability of seafood production and consumption: an introduction to the special issue
Journal of Cleaner Production
(2009) - et al.
Food and life cycle energy inputs: consequences of diet and ways to increase efficiency
Ecological Economics
(2003) - et al.
Fuel use and greenhouse gas emission implications of fisheries management: the case of the New England Atlantic herring fishery
Marine Policy
(2010) - et al.
Normative ethics and methodology for life cycle assessment
Journal of Cleaner Production
(2005) - et al.
Life cycle environmental impacts of tuna fisheries
Fisheries Research
(2005) - et al.
Environmental assessment of canned tuna manufacture with a life-cycle perspective
Resources, Conservation and Recycling
(2006) - et al.
Implications of energy use for fishing fleet—Taiwan example
Energy Policy
(2011) - et al.
Estimation of the carbon footprint of the Galician fishing activity (NW Spain)
Science of the Total Environment
(2010)
Further potentials in the joint implementation of life cycle assessment and data envelopment analysis
Science of the Total Environment
Updating the carbon footprint of the Galician fishing activity (NW Spain)
Science of the Total Environment
The rise of seafood awareness campaigns in an era of collapsing fisheries
Marine Policy
Management of environmental impacts of marine aquaculture in Europe
Aquaculture
Mass-media coverage, its influence on public awareness of climate-change issues, and implications for Japan's national campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Global Environmental Change
Significance of decision-making for LCA methodology
Environmental Impact Assessment Review
Fisheries and energy use
Life cycle assessment of horse mackerel fisheries in Galicia (NW Spain): Comparative analysis of two major fishing methods
Fisheries Research
Life cycle assessment of fresh hake fillets captured by the Galician fleet in the northern stock
Fisheries Research
Estimating global discards and their potential reduction for the Galician fishing fleet (NW Spain)
Marine Policy
Environmental assessment of frozen common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) captured by Spanish fishing vessels in the Mauritanian EEZ
Marine Policy
Data quality management for life cycle inventories – an example of using data quality indicators
Journal of Cleaner Production
Scepticism and uncertainty about climate change: dimensions, determinants and change over time
Global Environmental Change
Do healthy diets in Europe matter to the environment? A quantitative analysis
Journal of Policy Modeling
Life cycle assessment to eco-design food products: industrial cooked dish case study
Journal of Cleaner Production
Oil crisis, energy-saving technological change and the stock market crash of 1973–74
Transportation Research
Co-product allocation in life cycle assessments of seafood production systems: review of problems and strategies
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Midpoints versus endpoints. The sacrifices and benefits
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
The usefulness of an actor's perspective in LCA
Product chain actors' potential for greening the product life cycle
Journal of Industrial Ecology
Ghost fishing by lost fishing gear
PAS 2050:2011–Specification for the assessment of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of goods and Services
Environmental impacts of wild caught cod and farmed salmon – a comparison with chicken
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Design for environmental efficiency in fishing vessels
Carbon footprint of school meals
Environmental effects of fish on the consumers dish
The state of world aquaculture
The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2010
A framework for environmental analyses of fish food production systems based on systems engineering principles
Systems Engineering
Alternative fish finger production chains – life cycle analysis
Implementation of life cycle impact assessment methods: Data v2.0. ecoinvent report No. 3
Cooking up a storm: Food, greenhouse gas emissions, and our changing climate
Life cycle assessment of aquaculture systems—a review of methodologies
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
A review of methodological issues affecting LCA of novel food products
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Global warming: The complete briefing
Cited by (67)
Environmental performance of Cantabrian (Northern Spain) pelagic fisheries: Assessment of purse seine and minor art fleets under a life cycle approach
2023, Science of the Total EnvironmentA multi-echelon fish closed-loop supply chain network problem with carbon emission and traceability
2022, Expert Systems with ApplicationsMethods matter: Improved practices for environmental evaluation of dietary patterns
2022, Global Environmental ChangeEnergy flow and life cycle impact assessment of coffee-pepper production systems: An evaluation of conventional, integrated and organic farms in India
2022, Environmental Impact Assessment ReviewCitation Excerpt :Further, the results revealed under the CF system, saving (540 USD) could be possible by limiting non-renewable inputs, mainly fertilizers, lime, and fuel consumption (Table 7). Vázquez-Rowe et al. (2012) reported an average annual savings of 400€ to 5150€ for inefficient vine farms. Paramesh et al. (2018) revealed an economic reduction of 413 $ ha−1 year−1 due to energy optimization without reducing the arecanut yield.
Multi-product strategy to enhance the environmental profile of the canning industry towards circular economy
2021, Science of the Total EnvironmentCitation Excerpt :It can be seen that a circular economy approach is feasible and effective and these principles are in line with those mentioned by the European Commission in the Circular Economy action plan (European Commission, 2020b). When comparing with other results available in the peer-reviewed literature, it is important to note that there are some issues that need to be addressed in detail in order to make realistic comparisons (Avadí and Fréon, 2013; Vázquez-Rowe et al., 2012a): (i) The life cycle impact methodology should be detailed since, although the categories of different methodologies may be analogous, in many cases the units of measurement are different; (ii) The functional unit selected for the analysis, as well as the edible content of each product, to adequately estimate the associated environmental impact per unit and per quantity of product (e.g. 1 kg); and (iii) the environmental indicator used for comparison (environmental footprint, normalised impact factor, etc.). Taking all this information into account, Table 3 shows the detailed results of the comparison between the carbon footprint of different canned seafood products.