openLCA 1.

5
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional pro-
duction

Software Version: 1.5

Date: September 2016
GreenDelta GmbH1

1
GreenDelta GmbH, Müllerstrasse 135, 13349 Berlin, Germany; [email protected]
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

Content

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3
2 Goal and scope .................................................................................................... 4
3 Create a product system ..................................................................................... 4
4 Impact Assessment of a project .........................................................................6
5 Impact Assessment of a product system ........................................................... 8
5.1 Direct contributions of processes ..............................................................................................................8
5.2 Direct Contributions of processes including the pre-chain ............................................................... 9

6 Sensitivity Analysis ........................................................................................... 10

7 Basic commands ................................................................................................ 13
8 Feedback & Contact........................................................................................... 13

2
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

1 Introduction

This tutorial aims at explaining a typical Life Cycle Assessment example, while using and
discovering the openLCA software. Please consider that this is not a full LCA case study with
realistic data. LCA data are given as example and are not meant to be accurate.

This text focuses on basics of environmental impact assessment in openLCA using the 1.5
version of openLCA. This includes step-by-step instructions for a contribution analysis of a
product system under study and a comparison of environmental impacts of projects. If you
feel that some steps are missing (instructions are not clear enough), please first refer to the
basic modelling documentation.

The example given is based on the "ecoinvent 2.2" database, which can be downloaded from
openLCA Nexus (https://nexus.openlca.org/databases). Please not that the version 2 and 3
of the ecoinvent databases differ significantly so that the flows and processes of the exam-
ple will not be the same using the "ecoinvent 3" database. More information about changes
of the ecoinvent database versions can be obtained in the ecoinvent documentation2 .

2
http://www.ecoinvent.org/support/faqs/differences-between-ecoinvent-2-and-3/differences-
between-ecoinvent-2-and-3.html
3
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

2 Goal and scope

Imagine that you work in a local agricultural union and have accepted the mission to
improve environmental impacts of the local winegrowers. One of the obvious options seems
to develop organic viticulture. To do so, you need figures to convince them that they can
substantially reduce their impact while producing a good wine (taste is too subjective to be
considered in this case).
You surveyed conventional and organic wine growers to find out their inputs and outputs.
The" ecoinvent 2.2" database provides a large list of "already built” processes that fit your
needs. This will help you to model both options and provide reasonable comparison. To
ensure the comparison is adapted to a wine grower level, you do not consider the wine
productions processes, the bottles, or the transport to customers.

3 Create a product system

- Create the process "Organic Viticulture Production" with the quantitative reference
"grapes, organic"
- Create the process "Conventional Viticulture Production" with the quantitative
reference "grapes, conventional"
To create a new folder into "Flows" called "1.5 Viticulture”, right click and select "Add a new
child category". Do the same into the "Processes”, the "Product systems” and "Projects”. This
way, you can keep everything you will create altogether.
To create a new flow as a quantitative reference for the process, right click on the new
folder created for flows, select "Create a new flow", name it "grapes, organic", select
"Product flow" as flow type and choose the reference property "Mass".
To create a new process, right click on the new folder created for processes, select "Create a
new process", name it "Organic Viticulture Production" and select the quantitative reference
"grapes, organic". Add the input and output flows according to table 1, adjust the respective
amounts and define the providers for each input flow. Remember to save the changes
made.
Table 1 Input and output flows for the process "Organic Viticulture Production"

Input flow Category Amount

compost, at plant Agricultural means of production/organic fertilizer 2 kg

horn meal, at regional storehouse Agricultural means of production/organic fertilizer 1 kg

diesel, at regional storage Oils/fuels 0.005 kg

transport, lorry 7.5-16t, EURO5 Transport systems/road 0.000001*248 t*km

2
Occupation, arable Ressource/land 0.00286*1 m a

Output flow Category Amount

Grapes, organic Case Study Viticulture 1 kg

4
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

Phosphate Water/ground water 0.000053 kg

Ammonium, ion Water/ground water 0.000067 kg

Nitrate Water/ground water 0.074

To create a product system, go to the "General information" tab of the process created and
use the "Create product system" button, select the reference process "Organic Viticulture
Production", select "Add connected processes" and "Connect with system processes if
possible".
Then repeat each step described as above for creating the product system "Conventional
Viticulture Production" with the input and ouput flows accoding to table 2.
Table 2 Input and output flows for the process "Conventional Viticulture Production"

Input flow Category Amount

diammonium phosphate, as P2O5, Agricultural means of production/mineral fertilizer 0.046 kg

at regional storehouse

horn meal, at regional storehouse Agricultural means of production/organic fertilizer 0.01 kg

fungicides, at regional storehouse Agricultural means of production/pesticides 0.56 kg

herbicides, at regional storehouse Agricultural means of production/pesticides 0.0.53 kg

insecticides, at regional Agricultural means of production/pesticides 0.0008 kg

storehouse

boric oxide, at plant Chemicals/inorganics 0.0002 kg

magnesium oxide, at plant Chemicals/inorganics 0.076 kg

diesel, at regional storage Oils/fuels 0.005 kg

transport, lorry 7.5-16t, EURO5 Transport systems/road 0.000001*248 t*km

2
Occupation, arable Ressource/land 0.00286*1 m *a

Output flow Category Amount

Grapes, conventional Case Study Viticulture 1 kg

Phosphate Water/ground water 0.00012 kg

Ammonium, ion Water/ground water 0.00014 kg

Nitrate Water/ground water 0.566 kg

The product system "Organic Viticulture Production" should look like Figure 1.

5
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

Figure 1 Model Graph of the product system "Organic Viticulture Production"

The product system "Conventional Viticulture Production" should look like Figure 2.

Figure 2 Model Graph of the product system "Conventional Viticulture Production"

4 Impact Assessment of a project

- Create the project "Viticulture - Organic vs Conventional Production"

- Calculate the environmental impacts of the project using the "CML (baseline)" LCIA
method
To create a project, right click on the folder created for projects, select "Create a project" and
name it "Viticulture - Organic vs Conventional Production ".
Select the LCIA method "CML (baseline)" in the LCIA method section and select the following
impact categories:
• Acidification potential – average European
• Climate change – GWP 100
• Eutrophication - generic

6
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

• Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity – FAETP inf

• Human toxicity – HTP inf
• Terrestrial ecotoxicity – TAETP inf.
Add the product system "Organic Viticulture Production" in the compared product systems
section and name it "Organic". Add the second product system "Conventional Viticulture
Production" and name it "Conventional". When you have finished the project setup, click
"Report".
The report view will open up as a new window in the editor and the relative results should
look like Figure 3.

Figure 3 Environmental impacts of conventional and organic viticulture production using the "CML
(baseline)" method (base case)

The environmental impacts of the conventional product system are higher for all selected
impact categories as compared to the impacts of the organic product system.

7
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

5 Impact Assessment of a product system

- Calculate the environmental impacts of the process "Conventional Viticulture

Production" using the "CML (baseline)" LCIA method
In order to find the main sources for higher impacts of the conventional product system go
to the General information tab of the product system "Conventional Viticulture Production"
and quantify the environmental impacts by clicking "Calculate". Select the same method as
for the calculating the project "CML (baseline)" and the calculation type "Analysis".
5.1 Direct contributions of processes

In the direct contributions to impact category results - overview section you can see the five
processes with the highest contribution for the impact category "Human toxicity - HTP inf".
In this case, the process "o-dichlorobenzene, at pant - RER" has the highest direct
contribution with 5,67 kg 1,4 dichlorobenzene equivalents (eq.) for the impact category
human toxicity without its pre-chain required for the particular process.

Figure 4 Direct contributions to impact category results - overview of the analysis results

The same information can be found in the process contribution tab in which the absolute
amount of 5,67 kg 1,4 dichlorobenzene eq. and relative amount of 41,76 % of the process "o-
dichlorobenzene, at pant - RER" are shown.

8
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

Figure 5 Process contributions tab of the analysis results

5.2 Direct Contributions of processes including the pre-chain

When you go to the contribution tree tab, you can see the direct contributions for each
process including its respective pre-chain (as upstream total). The process "fungicide, at
regional store house (RER)" including its pre-chain accounts for 12.34 kg 1,4-dichlorobenzene
eq. which is 90.95% of the product system for the impact category human toxicity

Figure 6 Contribution tree tab of the analysis results

When you go to the Sankey diagram tab of the analysis results, you can find the direct and
upstream total contribution for each process. Set the Sankey diagram view with a right click
and select "Set Sankey diagram options", select the impact category "Human toxicity - HTP
inf" and set the cut-off to 8%.
The result should look like figure 7. You can now see that the process "fungicide, at regional
store house (RER)" has the direct contribution of 0.79 kg 1,4 dichlorobenzene eq. and 12.34 kg
1,4 dichlorobenzene eq. including its pre-chain as "Upstream total". The process "o-
dichlorobenzene, at pant - RER" with the highest direct contribution is a pre-process for
fungicide production.

9
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

Figure 7 Sankey Diagram of the analysis results

6 Sensitivity Analysis

- Calculate the environmental impacts for project "Viticulture - Organic vs ´Conventional

Production" with the different impact assessment method "ILCD 2011, midpoint"
- Calculate the environmental impacts for the product system "Conventional Viticulture
Production" with the different transport process " transport, tractor and trailer - CH"
To analyse the deviation of the results due to another choice of impact assessment method,
go to the project "Viticulture - Organic vs Conventional Production" and change the LCIA
method to "ILCA 2011, midpoint" in the LCIA method section.
Select the impact categories of the LCIA methods, which are similar to the impact categories
of the LCIA method "CML (baseline)" used in the base case:
• Acidification
• Climate change
• Terrestrial eutrophication
• Freshwater ecotoxicity

10
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

• Human toxicity – carcinogenics

• Terrestrial ecotoxicity – non-carcinogenics

Save the changes made and calculate the results.

Figure 8 Sensitivity Analysis of the LCIA method for the conventional and organic viticulture
production

If you compare figure 3 and 8, you can see that the results are different. The impact
categories in both methods are similar, but are based on different reference substances
with different units.
To analyse the deviation of results due to another choice of transport, create a copy of the
product system "Conventional Viticulture Production" by right clicking on the process in
the navigation window and selecting "Copy". Then, right-click on the folder "1.5 Viticulture"
and select "Paste". The process "Conventional Viticulture Production (copy)" should now
appear in the navigation window. Double click the copied process and rename it
"Conventional Viticulture Production - Tractor".

11
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

Delete the input flow "transport, lorry 7.5-16t, EUROS - RER" by right clicking the respective
flow and selecting "Remove selected". Add the input flow "transport, tractor and trailer -
CH", define the provider and consider the same amount (=0.000001 t*248 km). Create a
new product system "Conventional Viticulture Production - Tractor "and a new project
"Conventional Viticulture Production - Lorry vs Tractor Transport" to compare both options.

Figure 9 Sensitivity analysis of the transportation for the conventional viticulture production

If you compare both transport options, you can see that the mode of transport barely affects
the results of the product system analysed.

12
Case study viticulture - organic vs conventional production

7 Basic commands

Table 3 Basic commands in openLCA

Command Description

Open element Double click on the element

Copy and paste Right-click on the element to be duplicated and select "copy", right-click on the
folder, in which the copied element should be saved, and select "paste"

Drag and Drop Adding flows from the navigation window to the to the Input/ Output tab in the
process editor or adding processes from the navigation window to the model
graph in the product system editor

Filter Use the filter function for adding new flows to a process or selecting the
reference process in a product system

Minimise/maximise element Use the symbols

Save element
Strg+S or use saving symbol in the main menu

Save image Right-click in the Editor window and select "Save image"

Search Use the search function to search any element within the active database

Restore Windows Go to "Windows" in the main menu and select "Show views" and "Other" or use

restore symbol

Number formats Use a point for floating point numbers, a comma is not accepted

8 Feedback & Contact

If you have other questions not addressed by this document, need further clarifications on
any of the points commented, please contact us:
Tel. +49 30 48 496 – 030
Fax +49 30 48 496 – 991
[email protected]
GreenDelta GmbH
Müllerstrasse 135
D-13357 Berlin, Germany
www.greendelta.com

13