SummaryFood in general has a high nutrient content, which essentially passes through the human organism and ends up in the sewage system. This high nutrient content in sewage, however, is rarely included in environmental systems analyses of food products or production systems. At the same time, several studies on sewage systems have shown the significance of plant nutrients in sewage system outlets. This means that important environmental effects may be neglected in environmental systems studies of food.We present a method for including emissions that occur after food consumption in environmental systems analyses of foods. The method uses easily accessible input data to calculate the postconsumption emissions caused by certain food products.The method was tested by completing the results for eutrophication from seven life‐cycle assessments (LCAs) on food products with the corresponding emissions caused by outlets from a sewage plant. The results showed that postconsumption eutrophication was a significant part of the products' total life‐cycle impact, ranging from 5.5% (beef) to 86% (apples).The conclusion is that including postconsumption emissions is important for studies aiming at mapping a product's life cycle to find the most environmentally relevant parts, as well as for eco‐labeling purposes. If the purpose of the study is decision support, the postconsumption phase should be included where the decision affects this part of the system, otherwise not. When products are compared, postconsumption emissions should be included if their nutrient contents differ.

Life cycle assessment methodology was used to compare conventional wheat production with a scenario where source-separated human urine replaced mineral fertilisers. A change-orientated perspective was used, including differences in capital goods between the scenarios. An optimal fertilising strategy regarding application time, technique and substitution of mineral fertiliser was demonstrated to be important for energy use, global warming and acidification. For reducing the energy use, a well designed collection system for urine also proved important, while recovery of the urine was essential for reducing eutrophication. Applying an agricultural perspective when evaluating the system highlighted potential conflicts regarding nutrient utilisation.

Today there is a strong trend in Sweden for industrially processed meals to replace homemade meals. In the public debate this is often claimed to increase the environmental impact from foods. In the study presented in this article, we used life-cycle assessment to quantify the environmental impact of three meals: homemade, semiprepared, and ready-to-eat. The differences in environmental impact between the meals were small; the ready-to-eat meal used the most energy, whereas the homemade meal had higher emissions causing eutrophication and global warming. The dominating contributor to the environmental impact was agriculture, accounting for 30%, of the impact related to energy and 95% of that related to eutrophication. Industry, packaging, and consumer home transport and food preparation also contributed significantly. Important factors were raw material use, energy efficiency in industry and households, packaging, and residue treatment. To decrease the overall environmental impact of food consumption, improvements in agriculture are very important, together with raw-material use within industry and households.

Two scenarios for future pig meat production were constructed. The first was a "business as usual" scenario, where the pig feed was based on domestic grain and imported soy-meal, and no efforts were made to reduce pesticide use. The second scenario had a strong environmental focus, and both peas and rapeseed were grown at pig-farm level to produce grain and protein feed. Preventive measures, such as a more diverse crop rotation and mechanical weed control, were combined to reduce pesticide use. The two scenarios were environmentally assessed by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a pesticide risk indicator model (PRI-Farm). The results showed environmentally sound possibilities to reduce pesticide dependency and risks by using altered plant protection strategies in pig-feed production. Organizing on-farm feed production so that protein feed crops are integrated with grain crops contributes to a more diverse crop rotation.

Goal, Scope and Background. The purpose of the present study was to perform an environmental assessment for the entire life cycle of a seafood product and to include fishery-specific types of environmental impact in inventory and assessment. Environmental data for a frozen block of cod fillets was collected and used for a Life Cycle Assessment, including the fishery-specific environmental aspects seafloor use and biological extraction of target, by-catch and discard species. The fishery takes place in the Baltic Sea where cod is mainly fished by benthic trawls and gillnets.Methods. The functional unit was a consumer package of frozen cod fillets (400 g) reaching the household. Data was gathered from fishermen, fishery statistics, databases, companies and literature. Fishery-specific issues like the impact on stocks of the target and by-catch species, seafloor impact and discarding were quantified in relation to the functional unit and qualitative impact assessment of these aspects was included.Results. Findings include the fact that all environmental impact categories assessed (Global Warming Potential, Eutrophication Potential, Acidification Potential, Photochemical Ozone Creation Potential and Aquatic Ecotoxiciy) are dominated by the fishery. Around 700 m(2) of seafloor are swept by trawls and around 50 g of under-sized cod and other marine species are discarded per functional unit. The phases contributing most to total environmental impact following fishery were transports and preparation in the household. The process industry and municipal sewage treatment cause considerable amounts of eutrophying emissions.Conclusions. Conclusions are that there are considerable options for improvement of the environmental performance of the seafood production chain. In the fishery, the most important environmental measure is to fish sustainably managed stocks. Speed optimisation, increased use of less energy-intensive fishing gear and improved engine and fuel technology are technical measures that would considerably decrease resource use and environmental impact caused by fishery. Due to the importance of fishery for the overall results, the most important environmental improvement option after landing is to maintain high quality and minimise product losses.Recommendations and Outlook. The need for good baseline data concerning resource use and marine environmental impact of fisheries in order to perform environmental assessment of seafood products was demonstrated. LCA was shown to be a valuable tool for such assessments, which in the future could be used to improve the environmental performance of the seafood production chain or in the development of criteria of eco-labelling of seafood products originating in capture fisheries.

Part 1 Assessing the environmental impact of food processing operations: Life cycle assement (LCA): an introduction LCA of vegetable products LCA of fruit products LCA of animal products Environmental impact assessment of seafood products. Part 2 Good practice: Environmental issues in the production of beverages: the global coffee chain Improving energy efficiency The environmental management of packaging Recycling of packaging materials Biobased food packaging Recycling food processing wastes Waste treatment Assessing the safety and quality of recycled packaging materials Environmental training for the food industry Comparing integrated crop management and organic production LCA of wine production.

An LCA was performed on organic and conventional milk production at the farm level in Sweden. In the study, special focus was aimed at substance flows in concentrate feed production and nutrient flows on the farms. The different feeding strategies in the two forms of production, influence several impact categories. The import of feed by conventional dairy farms often leads to a substantial input of phosphorus and nitrogen. Organic milk production is a way to reduce pesticide use and mineral surplus in agriculture but this production form also requires substantially more farmland than conventional production. For Swedish conditions, however, a large use of grassland for grazing ruminants is regarded positively since this type of arable land use promotes the domestic environmental goals of biodiversity and aesthetic values.

A method for environmental assessment of agricultural land use is outlined. Environmental objectives and indicators of the land use quality are defined. The method is tested in case studies of cultivated vegetable oil crops: Swedish rape seed, Brazilian soybean and Malaysian oil palm. The results from this study lead us to believe that the indicators soil erosion, soil organic matter, soil structure, soil pH, phosphorus and potassium status of the soil, and the impact on biodiversity are a good choice of indicators. These indicators would give a good picture of long-term soil fertility and biodiversity. However, taking them together involves results that are a mix of quantitative and qualitative information, which makes it difficult to aggregate in an acceptable way. Therefore, land use assessment performed in this way includes not only quantitative results but also qualitative descriptions.

The shortage of data for emissions from agricultural tractors contributes to LCA results on environmental load from modern crop production possibly having high error levels and high uncertainties.

The feasibility of combining the concept of sustainability principles and the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is examined. The goal is to achieve an operational tool that incorporates sustainability in product development and strategic planning. While the method outlined has the structure of LCA, it emphasises aspects and parameters often omitted from traditional LCA. The analysis and results can be either qualitative or semi-quantitative. Although a qualitative analysis is less time consuming, it can still highlight the important issues. Qualitative information, which is easily lost in a quantitative analysis, can be emphasised. One of the conclusions is that the method is well suited for screening analysis.