Towards a net-zero greenhouse gas emission egg industry: A review of relevant mitigation technologies and strategies, current emission reduction potential, and future research needs

F. Grassauer, V. Arulnathan and N. Pelletier

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2023, vol. 181, issue C

Abstract: Despite having relatively low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to other terrestrial animal protein sources, egg production is among the fastest-growing livestock sectors and hence faces mounting pressure to reduce potential climate impacts. This includes both regulatory and market-based initiatives, as evidenced by the increasing number of private and public sector actors adopting a formal net-zero emissions objective. The current review identifies available technologies and management strategies for reducing GHG emissions in the industrial egg sector, taking into account both environmental and technical feasibility criteria. GHG emission reduction potentials for market-ready options are identified and used to derive an overall GHG emission reduction potential estimation for the sector based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's three emission scopes and drawing, in particular, on recent research of the Canadian egg industry. Priority research areas to support continued emissions reduction are identified. Widespread implementation of market-ready options could reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions to zero in the short to medium term. Scope 3 emissions could be reduced between 23 and 95% without offsetting. Important areas for further research include the evaluation of options related to feed production (i.e. conservation tillage and the use of NIs and UIs), least environmental cost feed formulation and feed delivery (i.e. precision feeding for individual birds), as well as potential pathways for carbon sequestration in the egg industry (e.g. via manure pyrolysis) to offset residual emissions.

Keywords: Egg production; Net zero emissions; Life cycle assessment; Sustainability; Climate change; Green technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032123001788
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:181:y:2023:i:c:s1364032123001788

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2023.113322

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().