RT Journal Article
T1 Environmental impact of the most representative Spanish olive oil farming systems: a Life Cycle Assessment study
A1 Fernández-Lobato, Lázuli
A1 Ruiz-Carrasco, Beatriz
A1 Tostado-Véliz, Marcos
A1 Jurado, Francisco
A1 Vera, David
K1 Aceite de oliva -- Producción
K1 Cambios climáticos
K1 Impacto ambiental
AB Agricultural production is an essential activity in the global economy that must advance towards the design of sustainability projects hand-in-hand with consumers, companies, and policymakers. An exhaustive study, in line with the guidelines set by government entities, is required to quantify this impact in an ample spectrum of environmental categories. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool that enables obtaining such information, as other authors have already demonstrated in different sectors. This study employs LCA to determine the environmental impact of virgin olive oil production, considering different agricultural and industrial production systems in Spain. For this purpose, a wide range of cultivated olive tree crops and different types of olive oil mill facilities in Andalusia have been studied-the territory of Spain with the highest dedication to olive oil production. This area has a strong emphasis on developing projects within this economic sector. The study focuses on olives, virgin olive oil and hectares of cultivation land, adopting a “cradle-to-gate” approach, and including economic allocation, considering the main processes related to its production in the agricultural and industrial phases. The study time covers the five most recent harvests (2017/18 to 2021/22) to obtain appropriate and updated environmental impact values. The results from the study time indicate that higher densification, irrigation, and slope crops lead to a higher environmental impact. Specifically, the climate change category of the functional unit ranges between 1.90 (low yield crops) and 6.09 kg of CO2 equivalent (super-intensive irrigated), while in the most representative cases, extensive crops, it results in 2.90 (rainfed) and 3.49 (irrigated) kg of CO2 equivalent. It should be noted that this study breaks new ground by thoroughly assessing the environmental impact of different olive oil production methods in Spain.
PB Elsevier
YR 2024
FD 2024-02-25
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/34242
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/34242
LA eng
NO L. Fernández-Lobato, B. Ruiz-Carrasco, M. Tostado-Véliz, F. Jurado, D. Vera, Environmental impact of the most representative Spanish olive oil farming systems: a Life Cycle Assessment study, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 442, 2024, 141169, ISSN 0959-6526, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141169. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652624006164)
NO This research work was supported by the project entitled “Hacia una producción sostenible y sin residuos en la industria oleícola: un modelo de economía circular” (Ref. No. 1381442), co-funded by Programa Operativo FEDER 2014–2020 and Consejería de Economía y Conocimiento de la Junta de Andalucía of the Spanish Government.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 4 mar 2026