IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/inecol/v23y2019i4p906-917.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Absolute Sustainability‐Based Life Cycle Assessment: A Benchmarking Approach to Operate Agri‐food Systems within the 2°C Global Carbon Budget

Author

Listed:
  • Chanjief Chandrakumar
  • Sarah J. McLaren
  • Nihal P. Jayamaha
  • Thiagarajah Ramilan

Abstract

Given the increasing environmental impacts associated with global agri‐food systems, operating and developing these systems within the so‐called absolute environmental boundaries has become crucial, and hence the absolute environmental sustainability concept is particularly relevant. This study introduces an approach called absolute sustainability‐based life cycle assessment (ASLCA) that informs the climate impacts of an agri‐food system (on any economic level) in absolute terms. First, a global carbon budget was calculated that is sufficient to limit global warming to below 2°C. Next, a share of the carbon budget available to the global agri‐food sector was estimated, and then it was shared between agri‐food systems on multiple economic levels using four alternative methods. Third, the climate impacts of those systems were calculated using life cycle assessment methodology and were benchmarked against those carbon budget shares. This approach was used to assess a number of New Zealand agri‐food systems (agri‐food sector, horticulture industries and products) to investigate how these systems operated relative to their carbon budget shares. The results showed that, in 2013, the New Zealand agri‐food systems were within their carbon budget shares for one of the four methods, and illustrated the scale of change required for agri‐food systems to perform within their carbon budget shares. This method can potentially be extended to consider other environmental impacts with global boundaries; however, further development of the ASLCA is necessary to account for other environmental impacts whose boundaries are only meaningful when defined at a regional or local level.

Suggested Citation

  • Chanjief Chandrakumar & Sarah J. McLaren & Nihal P. Jayamaha & Thiagarajah Ramilan, 2019. "Absolute Sustainability‐Based Life Cycle Assessment: A Benchmarking Approach to Operate Agri‐food Systems within the 2°C Global Carbon Budget," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 23(4), pages 906-917, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:23:y:2019:i:4:p:906-917
    DOI: 10.1111/jiec.12830
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12830
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jiec.12830?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hannouf, Marwa & Assefa, Getachew & Gates, Ian, 2021. "Carbon intensity threshold for Canadian oil sands industry using planetary boundaries: Is a sustainable carbon-negative industry possible?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Mia Heide & Michael Z. Hauschild & Morten Ryberg, 2023. "Reflecting the importance of human needs fulfilment in absolute sustainability assessments: Development of a sharing principle," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(4), pages 1151-1164, August.
    3. Jeroen B. Guinée & Arjan de Koning & Reinout Heijungs, 2022. "Life cycle assessment‐based Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment is also relative," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 26(3), pages 673-682, June.
    4. Morten W. Ryberg & Troels K. Bjerre & Per Henrik Nielsen & Michael Hauschild, 2021. "Absolute environmental sustainability assessment of a Danish utility company relative to the Planetary Boundaries," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(3), pages 765-777, June.
    5. Aneta Parsonsova & Ivo Machar, 2021. "National Limits of Sustainability: The Czech Republic’s CO 2 Emissions in the Perspective of Planetary Boundaries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-16, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:23:y:2019:i:4:p:906-917. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1088-1980 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.