Assessing the Carbon Footprint of Fertilisers, at Production and Full LCA

Keywords: life-cycle assessment, LCA, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint calculator, cool farm tool, Cool Farm Aliance, GHG calculator.

For European policy makers, combating climate change is a top priority. This is reflected in Europe’s ambitious targets in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: a 20% reduction of GHG emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and a further 40% reduction by 2030. To achieve these reductions a directive on emissions trading was adopted by the European Parliament and Council in 2003. The first phase of EU’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) was launched in 2005. With ETS, a gradually decreasing cap or limit is set on the total amount of GHG emission by factories, power plants or other energy intensive installations. Within the cap, companies receive or buy emission allowances which they can trade with one another according to their needs. The fertiliser industry, with ammonia and nitric acid being key products, entered ETS III in 2013.

Given the importance of GHG emissions, Fertilizers Europe, as representative of the European fertiliser industry, developed a tool that allows producers to evaluate the GHG released during their fertiliser production, i.e. the Carbon Footprint Calculator (CFC) for fertiliser products. Next to assessing their own emissions, this CFC also allows them to compare themselves with European and other regional reference values.

Next to cradle-to-plant-gate calculations available in the CFC, a consortium of partners from academia, industry, non-profit organisations and consultants, including Yara, Fertilizers Europe and the University of Aberdeen) developed a tool to perform cradle-to-farm gate calculations of GHG emissions, i.e. the Cool Farm Tool (CFT). The CFT enables users to measure the life-cycle GHG emissions of their crop and livestock products based on information available on farm (e.g. use of fertiliser, pesticide, machinery, seeds, etc.). The tool identifies hotspots of greenhouse gas emissions and makes it easy for users to test alternative management scenarios. Results of Fertilizers Europe’s CFC are integrated as an input into the CFT.

Bjarne Christensen¹, Frank Brentrup², Laetitia Six³, Christian Pallière³ and Antoine Hoxha³.

¹ ChemTechnic Consulting, Virumgade 49 A, DK-2830 Virum, Denmark.

² Yara International ASA, Hanninghof 35, D-48249 Dülmen, Germany.

³ Fertilizers Europe, Av. E Van Nieuwenhuyse 6, B 1160 Brussels, Belgium.

19 pages, 5 figures, 9 tables, 16 references.