Dr. Kim Stackhouse - What We Learned Conducting an Industry Farm to Fork Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Beef – Dos & Don’ts
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What We Learned Conducting an Industry Farm to Fork Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Beef – Dos & Don’ts - Dr. Kim Stackhouse, Director of Sustainability Research, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, from the 2014 Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), November 2 -5, 2014, São Paulo, Brazil. More presentations at http://trufflemedia.com/agmedia/conference/2014-global-roundtable-sustainable-beef
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Dr. Kim Stackhouse - What We Learned Conducting an Industry Farm to Fork Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Beef – Dos & Don’ts
- 1. WHAT WE LEARNED CONDUCTING AN INDUSTRY FARM TO FORK LCA FOR BEEF, THE DOS & DON’TS” Kim Stackhouse, P.h.D
- 2. 2 • Committed to a journey • Benchmark research • Trust CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
- 3. 3 Important to remember that there are tradeoffs and food production will result in an impact – the goal is improvement over time ZERO IMPACT IS NOT POSSIBLE
- 4. 4 • Improved over time • 6 years we have improved 5% Environmental and social, 7% • Innovations within the food system • Crop yields, machinery and irrigation technology, manure management, precision farming, and animal performance • Biogas capture, closed-loop water cooling systems, waste water recycling, and “right size” packaging WHAT DID WE FIND?
- 5. 5 • Vast definitions of sustainability • Lack of comments on GHGs, more on animal welfare, traceability, etc. • Food waste WHAT SURPRISED US?
- 6. 6
- 8. 8 Eco-Efficiency Portfolio LCA 2005 2011 Pre-harvest USDA-ARS Post- harvest BASF 2005 2011 LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
- 11. 11 kgmunicipalwasteeq./UB SOLID WASTE EMISSIONS 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 emissions to soil have been reduced by 7%
- 12. 12 kgCO2e/UB GREENHOUSE GASES 0 5 10 15 20 25 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 2%
- 13. 13 kgSO2e/UB ACIDIFICATION POTENTIAL 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 acidification potential emissions have been reduced by 3%
- 14. 14 greywater(IdilutedH2Oe/UB) WATER EMISSIONS 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 emissions to water have been reduced by 10%
- 15. 15 normalizedandweighted/ UB OCCUPATIONAL ILLNESSES AND ACCIDENTS 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 occupational illnesses and accidents have been reduced by 32%
- 16. 16 LH2O/UB WATER USE 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 water use have been reduced by 3%
- 17. 17 m2a/UB LAND USE 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 land use has been reduced by 4%
- 18. 18 MJ/UB ENERGY CONSUMPTION 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 2005 2011 Consumer Retail Case Ready Harvesting On Farm Since 2005 energy use has been reduced by 2%
- 19. 19 MJ/UB ENERGY CONSUMPTION 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 2005 2011 Non-Renewable Renewable Non- Bio-Based Renewable Bio- Based
- 20. 20 • Can’t tell you everything • Don’t always give you the complete story • Rules/standards that may not apply to beef • Beef is COMPLEX • Grazing, ecosystems, bi-products, embodied energy • Biogenic carbon LCAs
- 21. 21 • Spend time on social indicators (yet) • Send surveys first, start with a data set • Expect an LCA to answer biodiversity questions DON’T
- 22. 22 • Tell our story • Good science baseline • Supply chain focus in the right areas for improvement BENEFITS BEEF LCA?
- 23. 23 • Continuous improvement over time • A journey, NOT a destination • Have a sustainable product today and we want a more sustainable product tomorrow KEEP IN MIND
Editor's Notes
- And as we began our journey to more sustainable beef – there were some things that we did right to help make our journey achievable. First and foremost we truly believe that continuous improvement is the most important aspect of sustainability. And when we say that the most important attribute of sustainability is improving overtime, we recognize that it is about improvements from the past but also continuing to improve in the future. As you all know sustainability is difficult to define because 100 people will have 100 different definitions – when we started this journey the first thing we did was clarify and develop a definition for beef. We embraced beef as the most important commodity to feed the growing world and today, that is more important than ever before as we work towards feeding the growing population. We conducted the most extensive benchmarking research ever conducted on the beef value chain to put a stake in the ground and we socialized the concept of sustainability – in the way we framed it – to influencers, producers, NGOs, processors, retailers and other stakeholders with an interest in beef.
- Before we begin, we must recognize that we do not live in a perfect world where zero impact is possible - humans will always cause an impact – that is how life is sustained. We have to remember that the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in and everything that we do will result in an impact – the goal is to understand the unintended consequences from those actions and to work toward a better tomorrow.
- We will begin with the high level findings from the beef sustainability assessment. In just 6 years we have improved our overall sustainability by 5% and if we focus on just the environmental and social pillars we have improved 7%. So how were those improvements achieved? Improvements were achieved from innovations within the food systems – on farm things like improved crop yields and animal performance and off farm things like biogas capture in our packing plants which power up to 60% of energy use today.
- There were also some things that really surprised us. The first part of this project looked at a hot spot analysis where we interviewed 50 people to better understand the perceptions of beef sustainability. We found that while greenhouse gases really started the whole sustainability conversation – now they are much less important and there are more comments on other topics like animal welfare and traceability. We also learned that food waste is our lowest hanging fruit when we talk about improving sustainability. 40% of food is wasted, resulting in $2500 year annually to a family. If we reduced beef waste by half, we could improve our sustainability by 10%. Food waste is easily the largest sustainability concern we as society face if we are going to feed a growing world in 2050.
- We asked those 50 stakeholders that we interviewed to describe beef sustainability and this figure represents the most common definitions given by stakeholders. The beef industry definition of sustainability, “balancing environmental responsibility, economic opportunity, and social diligence,” encompasses stakeholder perceptions.
- Now, understanding beef sustainability is challenging because the beef system is one of the most complex biological systems in the world there are many inputs that must be understood…. Conducting a comprehensive sustainability life cycle assessment of the entire U.S. beef industry is no small task. A life cycle assessment is essentially an accounting model, taking into account all inputs and outputs along the entire beef value chain. So from fertilizer used in the cow-calf sector to energy used to cook product in the consumer’s home, everything is represented. To give you an idea of just how complex this type of work is, let me give you an example. When working with one of our collaborators in the packing sector, sitting in the room with 20 of their best and brightest plant engineers reviewing an excel spreadsheet with over 600,000 data inputs, we got to the line item of toilet paper. We knew how much toilet paper was used in that plant per day but we had to figure out if that was less than or greater than 1% of the total paper used in the beef supply chain.
- This research is provides us with a benchmark for beef sustainability comparing 2005 and 2011. We also have data on farm for 1970 but since there is no data from the 1970s in the post-harvest sector – we will only show the 2005 and 2011 data for this presentation. The 1970’s were chosen to reflect the shift to boxed beef, 2005 reflects the use of distiller’s grains, and 2011 represented present day beef value chain This work was certified by 3rd party NSF in July, 2013, which is the largest 3rd party certification company in the world. The on-farm data used is based on the Meat Animal Research Center and we are working on the collection of region specific data now. Two models were utilized in the research. The first was the integrated farm system model which is a USDA-ARS model and it was used for on farm predictions. The IFSM utilizes mathematical equations and 25 years of weather simulated every minute to predict biological processes. For example, if you are a rancher in Northern MT you have different soil types and weather patterns than a rancher in West TX, and thus your forage will differ and so will the gains on your animals. We need to be able to accurately reflect that. The second model was the BASF model which is more traditional, based on inputs and outputs, like the toilet paper example and it was used for all post-harvest predictions.
- This graph provides high level data and a way to visualize sustainability more holistically. Costs in consumer price are along the x-axis and environmental and social burdens are on the y axis. They are normalized and weighted and the higher the cost and impact is oriented towards the x/y intercept which is backward than most graphs. Here you can see that we have improved our sustainability by 5% in 6 years
- This figure demonstrates more specifically where we have seen improvements over the last 6 years in each environmental category (resource use, land use, water use, energy use, and emissions) and two social categories (toxicity potential and occupational illnesses and accidents). Beef has improved in all areas.
- There are some real benefits to conducting sustainability research. First, it provides us the foundational knowledge to tell our beef sustainability story that is based in good science. It also allows us to focus on areas in the supply chain that actually improve sustainability- like food waste and it provides us the knowledge we need to ensure a sustainable future.
- There are some real benefits to conducting sustainability research. First, it provides us the foundational knowledge to tell our beef sustainability story that is based in good science. It also allows us to focus on areas in the supply chain that actually improve sustainability- like food waste and it provides us the knowledge we need to ensure a sustainable future.
- There are some real benefits to conducting sustainability research. First, it provides us the foundational knowledge to tell our beef sustainability story that is based in good science. It also allows us to focus on areas in the supply chain that actually improve sustainability- like food waste and it provides us the knowledge we need to ensure a sustainable future.
- When it comes to sustainability there are some important things to keep in mind: sustainability is about continuing to improve overtime, it is a journey not a destination and we have a sustainable product today with 5th and 6th generation ranchers- we just want a more sustainable product tomorrow.