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Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an approach used to calculate the potential environmental impacts of a product over the course of its life cycle. Supply chain information is essential for LCAs, but there are few detailed assessments of production and consumption practices for specific regions. This study introduces the commodity supply mix (CSM), which relies on mapping national or international supply chains, as a way to gain a deeper understanding of these issues.
The study applies the CSM to the Brazilian soybean supply chain to China, EU, France, and the rest of the world. It then quantifies the damage to biodiversity and effects on water scarcity footprints.
The authors find that different markets show distinct sourcing patterns specific to their own soybean supply chain, which results in distinct impacts on land and water. The EU experiences the lowest potential biodiversity damage but the largest water scarcity footprint when compared to the average impact scores obtained from Brazilian soybean production data.
Overall, examining the CSM represents a viable way for practitioners to obtain more region-specific quantitative information on supply chains.
Perspective / Research by Trase assists LCA practitioners by providing more regionally relevant data on the environmental impacts of agricultural commodities.
Journal article / This paper describes a rapid evidence synthesis to identify which forest-risk commodities imported to the UK have the highest overseas impacts.
Perspective / Researchers call for a renewed focus on animal welfare and the ethical price being paid for a narrow and inattentive focus on emissions reduction.
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