Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
AGRICULTURAL REFERENCE SYSTEMS
IN LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENTS
Nicolai C. Jungk, Guido A. Reinhardt and Sven O. Gärtner
1. OBJECTIVE AND PROCEDURE
A life cycle analysis (LCA) for agricultural products must observe the so-
called agricultural reference system in order to obtain accurate results. The
reference system defines what the cultivated land area would be used for if
the investigated product were not to be produced. Not considering
reference systems violates the principle of 'comparing like with like' and
may distort the results. The objective of the present work is to discuss and
define this principle as well as others. One of these is that the geographical
boundaries must be clearly defined.
The production of biomass for energy from agriculture or forestry,
in comparison to the provision of fossil fuels, requires relatively large areas
of land. Therefore, when a comparison is being made between a bioenergy
and a fossil energy carrier, it is always necessary to define an alternative
way in which the required land might be used if not for the production of
energy. Any environmental assessment of a bioenergy production system
has to take into account such an alternative land use, also referred to as the
(agricultural) reference system. If this factor were to be ignored, the
production system under concern would not be adequately represented,
which would put any claim for sustainability in question. With regard to
ecological impact assessments particularly of agricultural products -
including bioenergy carriers - the reference system has often not been
considered in the past (see for example Andersson and Ohlsson 1999;
Ceuterick and Spirinckx 1997; Möhlmann 1998), or different reference
systems were used for the same LCA objective (
e.g.
Biewinga and van der
Bijl 1996; Reinhardt
et al.
1999; Wolfensberger
et al.
1997). Therefore, it
was found necessary to define the role of the reference system and its
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