Environmental life cycle assessment of Finnish beef – cradle-to-farm gate analysis of dairy and beef breed beef production

Abstract

Objective of this study was to define current typical Finnish beef production systems and to estimate the environmental impacts of Finnish beef. Environmental impacts were estimated using life cycle assessment (LCA) approach with key impact categories; global warming (GWP), eutrophication and acidification potential. Both beef and dairy breed -based systems were investigated separately and, in more detail, separately for heifers, bulls and cows. In addition, regarding GWP, assessment with more specified greenhouse gas emission models were compared to assessment with models used in Finnish National Inventory Report (NIR).To gain detailed knowledge of the environmental impacts and mitigation potential in Finnish beef production system, environmental LCA model was integrated to biological plant and animal production models. Dynamic assessment model was constructed to provide a direct presentation of the effects of shifting diet, slaughter age or weight to GWP, eutrophication, acidification from all sources simultaneously. The GWP of Finnish beef fattening phase varied from 16.2 to 20.0 kgCO2-eq./kg carcass weight (CW) with specified methods and from 16.8 to 19.2 kgCO2-eq./kgCW with NIR methods. The average dairy breed beef GWP resulted 24.9 kgCO2-eq./kgCW, while the beef breed beef GWP was 32.1 kgCO2-eq./kgCW with specified emission models. With IDF allocation and NIR methods, GWP of average dairy breed beef was 19.5 kgCO2-eq./kgCW and for average beef breed beef it was 33.6 kgCO2-eq./kgCW. The aquatic eutrophication the average dairy breed beef resulted 21.7 gPO4-eq./kg CW, while for the average beef breed beef it was 33.1 gPO4-eq./kgCW. Acidification potential of average dairy beef was 58.3 gAE-eq/kgCW and of average beef breed beef was 64.3 gAE-eq./kg CW. When the IDF allocation was used with specified assessment methods, the GWP of beef from dairy breed cattle was estimated nearly 20% lower compared to allocation based on Finnish feeding requirements. Present study showed that in the current Finnish beef production the dairy breed beef had significantly lower environmental load in all three impact categories. It was observed that the specified methods, which were able to distinguish differences between annual and perennial crops and take the feed quality better into account, gave significantly different results when compared to NIR methods. As the LCA model was constructed to provide assessment tool for further scenario comparisons, the specified methods were considered to give better resolution for these assessments.