Environmental life cycle assessment of Mediterranean sea bass and sea bream
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Author(s)
Kallitsis, Evangelos
Korre, Anna
Mousamas, Dimitris
Avramidis, Pavlos
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The aquaculture sector is the fastest growing food production industry, with sea bass and sea bream consisting important exporting goods in the Mediterranean region. This work presents results of a life cycle assessment of Mediterranean sea bass and sea bream, based on primary data collected from a Greek producer. The system boundary included fish feed production and the rearing operation, as well as the packaging and delivery processes, which were neglected in preceding literature studies. The life cycle inventory developed addressed previous data gaps in the production of Mediterranean aquaculture species. Comparison to preceding studies revealed differences on the production inventories and identified methodological choices leading to variability. Packaging and delivery processes were found to contribute approximately 40% towards the global warming score. The production of both sea bass and sea bream was shown to come with high eutrophication impacts occurring from the rearing stage. The feed production was identified as the most environmental impact intensive process throughout the life cycle. Sea bass came with lower environmental impacts per unit live mass, which was reversed when the species were compared on a protein basis. The replicable and transparent model presented here, contributes towards the more accurate quantification of the environmental impacts associated with Mediterranean aquaculture species and supports efforts aiming to promote environmental protection through dietary change.
Date Issued
2020-11-18
Date Acceptance
2020-11-16
Citation
Sustainability, 2020, 12 (22)
ISSN
2071-1050
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Sustainability
Volume
12
Issue
22
Copyright Statement
©2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open accessarticle distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Studies
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
life cycle assessment
environmental impact
fish farming
sea bass
sea bream
DICENTRARCHUS-LABRAX
PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
IMPACTS
CONSUMPTION
PRODUCTS
DIETS
FEED
12 Built Environment and Design
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 9617