Food is a basic need, but so is a sustainable society. There is an urgent need to increase our knowledge on the environmental consequences of food production, processing and handling in order to make improvements that promote sustainability (Berlin, 2002). However, in order to make real improvements in the environmental performance of a food supply chain, specific empirical data on systems energy requirements need to be assessed in a specific manner prior to decision making (Owens, 1997). The theory of ecology of scale may hold an important key to more sustainable food processing as it suggests that the major influence on ecological performance of food supply chains results from the scale associated with the involved companies (Schlich, 2008).
The present study sought to gather empirical data on the delivered energy requirements of the Kenyan fresh milk chain while applying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) technique. The study aimed at investigating whether the operation efficiency as influenced by the size of the surveyed dairy enterprises is more important than corresponding transport distances by regarding all energy efforts in this process chain. Energy balances were used as a component of LCA to establish the energy consumption, and from this database the primary energy and environmental impacts were then calculated as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions related to the main processes involved in this milk chain. The total energy uses were then allocated to a functional unit of 1 kg of milk ready for retailing to obtain the specific energy use. Comparisons were then drawn between the specific energy turnovers and corresponding business sizes presented as milk throughput per year. The environmental hot spots (life cycle steps that are more burdensome to the environment) were also identified. This method has also been extensively applied by Schlich et al., (2006) to investigate a number of food supply chains, such as lamb, wine, beef and pork. Strong logarithmic digression relation between firm size and specific energy turnover were observed; thus supporting the theory of ecology of scale similar to the findings of this study. Additionally, this study also identified the farming stage as an important environmental hot spot, consuming the most energy compared to all other stages investigated in this product chain. Diesel emerged as the most important fuel useful for any energy saving interventions aimed at reducing the CO2 emissions of this product chain; although electricity and wood were also quite popular.
The application of energy balances as part of the LCA methodology is useful in studying the environmental performance of food supply chains in developing economies to establish hot spots and optimum business sizes for more energy-efficient food supply chains.
Verknüpfung zu Publikationen oder weiteren Datensätzen
