Enhancing Agricultural Sustainability and Certification through Real-Time LCA: A Case Study on Circular Economy in Wheat Production

Within the framework of the project “Real-time environmental assessment of agricultural and agrifood production for the support of certification schemes”, a real-time, web-based Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool has been developed. The tool is designed to simulate all stages of the supply chain, providing a user-friendly interface while utilizing real-world sensor data to assess the carbon footprint and environmental impacts of the agricultural sector with greater accuracy. These assessments are essential for environmental certification processes. To demonstrate the tool’s functionality, the environmental impacts of four different wheat production routes, with or without vetch and including one or two harvests crops have been assessed. Their environmental performance has been compared in a Cradle to Gate approach, per 700 kg of produced wheat. Furthermore, to validate the tool’s accuracy against existing software on the market, the environmental impacts of these four processes have also been assessed using the OpenLCA software.