AGRICULTURAL REFERENCE SYSTEMS IN LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENTS - Economics of Sustainable Energy in Agriculture - page 104

conventional diesel and a comparison was carried out based on those
results. This whole procedure was then carried out four times, each time
with a different reference system - as shown in Figure 8.3. Figure 8.4
indicates that the choice of the reference system can indeed have a
significant effect on the overall results. The various parameters show very
different patterns of differences between the four scenarios.
Thus for example emissions are virtually unaffected by the
reference system, whereas the emissions differ quite widely. Figure
8.5 indicates the reason for such differences: in this case, all environmental
impacts due to transport were excluded from the calculations, i.e. only the
agricultural production and processing were considered. In both cases
biodiversity was only assessed qualitatively due to a lack of a generally
accepted methodology regarding this parameter.
Again for instance the emissions are equal for all four
scenarios. Furthermore, they are also not different from the values shown
in Figure 8.4, indicating that the emissions are generated through
agricultural processes. It is clear that the differences in the results caused
by the reference system are almost entirely due to the transport of the
various materials. The reason for this is as follows: in any chain of land use