Product carbon footprint of a citrus company in the NW of Argentina

NISHIHARA HUN ANDREA L.; JONATHAN WHEELER; LORENA CHIRIVELLA MÉNDEZ; FERNANDO DANIEL MELE

Medellín

Conferencia; VII International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment in Latin America; 2017

Universidad EAFIT

Citrus industry is one of the most important economic activities in the province of Tucumán, and lemons (Citrus x limon) are considered among the five priority export agro-products of Argentina (National Ministry of Agriculture, 2013). Lemon is grown in owned and third-party farms. After harvesting, it is transported to the company facilities in Famaillá (Tucumán) where part of the lemon is derived for its conditioning and expedition as fresh fruit. Theremainder is sent for processing to a manufacturing plant that produces concentrated juice (clear and cloudy), essential oil and dehydrated peel. The present study is based on data from the productive campaign 2013.The ISO series on LCA (14040, 14044, 14067) were followed and the IPCC (2013) 100-years characterization factors were applied. The system boundaries include two sub-systems: Agriculture (agricultural tasks associated with lemon production) and Industry (fresh fruit packaging and product processing).Twelve percent of the total carbon footprint (HC) is given by fresh lemon, 26% by clarified juice, 40% by cloudy juice, 2% by essential oil and 20% by dehydrated peel. Numerical results turned out to be extremely sensitive to the allocation method used. The use of nitrogen fertilizers and the consumption of natural gas and electricity are determinant in the HC value.