EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Assessing Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Fresh Unpacked, Fresh Packed, and Frozen Carrots in Austria: A Case Study with a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Approach

Franziska Birkenmaier, Lucas Schuchter, Martin Pillei and Katrin Bach ()
Additional contact information
Franziska Birkenmaier: Department of Food Technology & Nutrition, Management Center Innsbruck (MCI), 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Lucas Schuchter: Department of Environmental, Process & Energy Engineering, Management Center Innsbruck (MCI), 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Martin Pillei: Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Management Center Innsbruck (MCI), 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Katrin Bach: Department of Food Technology & Nutrition, Management Center Innsbruck (MCI), 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 17, 1-20

Abstract: (1) Background: LCA is an established method for the systematic analysis of the environmental impact of products throughout their life cycle. (2) Methods: The LCA on fresh (un)packed and frozen carrots, with system boundaries from the cradle to supermarket gate and the functional unit of 1 kg of carrots, is applied using openLCA 1.11, Agribalyse v 3.1 and is calculated with EF 3.0. A sensitivity analysis of transport and carrot loss was made. To consider economic sustainability, a cost calculation for transportation and cooled storage is conducted. (3) Results: The impact category of climate change for fresh carrots results in 0.186 kg CO 2 eq for unpacked carrots, 0.200 kg CO 2 eq for LDPE-packed carrots, and 0.195 kg CO 2 eq for PLA-packed carrots. Transportation accounts for the largest impact, with up to 50% resulting from the transportation distance and the use of cooled lorries, followed by post-harvest handling (15–21%) and cultivation (21–22%). PLA-packed carrots save 2.4% of CO 2 and 6.0% of fossil energy compared to LDPE-packed carrots. Regional carrots with short transportation distances require only 57% of CO 2 . Frozen carrots have a threefold higher result of 0.614 kg CO 2 eq, resulting mostly from the high amounts of energy required for production and frozen storage. Post-harvest handling contributes to 43% of CO 2 , followed by supermarket storage (27%) and transport (22%). The transportation costs for frozen carrots are 24% higher than for fresh carrots, and their storage costs are 3.8 times higher at 0.181 EUR/kg. (4) Conclusion: Frozen carrots are more expensive and have a greater environmental impact. Nevertheless, they are relevant for the preservation of agricultural products and year-round availability.

Keywords: Life Cycle Assessment; fresh carrots; plastic packaging; frozen carrots; sustainability; environmental impact; economic impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/17/7513/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/17/7513/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:17:p:7513-:d:1467607

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:17:p:7513-:d:1467607