Carbon intensive but decarbonising quickly? Using Life Cycle Assessments to determine whether the South African pome fruit industry is becoming cleaner.

Research profile: Lorren de Kock

Carbon intensity is an important descriptor of and widely used proxy for environmental impacts of products. Products exported from carbon-intensive economies are becoming vulnerable to soft-trade barriers. Producers and customers thus need to know whether production is becoming cleaner. The purpose of this study was to determine the global warming potential of South African apples and pears (pome fruit) for the years 2000, 2010 and 2020, and compare it to that cultivated and packaged in other countries. The Attributional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was used to determine the climate change impact across the main stages of the pome fruit life cycle namely; the farm, packhouse, controlled atmosphere store and cold store. Retrospective LCAs were used to determine the historical environmental impacts for the years 2000 and 2010 and a prospective LCA for the year 2020.

The results obtained from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) impact assessment method indicated a decrease in the aggregated Global Warming Potential (GWP) of pome fruit from 1.52 kg CO₂eq/kg fruit in 2000 to 1.23 kg CO₂eq/kg fruit in 2010 and finally 1.02 kg CO₂eq/kg fruit in 2020 across the four life cycle stages specified. The life cycle stage with the largest contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was the Controlled Atmosphere store. At the activity level, the consumption of the national grid electricity in the fruit packaging and storage facilities was identified as the hotspot for all years. The normalised results for the industry show the same rate of decline during the 20-year period and correlate to the increasing trend of eco-efficiency practices implemented within the industry. South African pome fruit GHG emissions for the year 2000 were relatively high compared to similar international studies on apples and pears during the same period. The results for the years 2010 and 2020 indicate a sustained decline in GHG emissions intensity. Improvements are due largely to more intensive farm-stage production coupled with eco-efficiency improvements in all four value-chain stages, with a projected decline in carbon intensity of electricity from the national grid expected to make a significant contribution in the coming years.