A material flow or life cycle analysis perspective for the Water-Energy-Food nexus assessment of organisations? A comparative study
Leonardo Vásquez-Ibarra,
Ricardo Rebolledo-Leiva,
Eduardo Entrena-Barbero,
Mario Fernández,
Gumersindo Feijoo,
Sara González-García,
María Teresa Moreira
Affiliations
Leonardo Vásquez-Ibarra
Department of Computing and Industries, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Universidad Católica del Maule, Av. San Miguel, Talca 3605, Chile; Centro de Innovación en Ingeniería Aplicada (CIIA), Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Universidad Católica del Maule, Av. San Miguel, Talca 3605, Chile
Ricardo Rebolledo-Leiva
Department of Computing and Industries, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Universidad Católica del Maule, Av. San Miguel, Talca 3605, Chile; Corresponding author.
Eduardo Entrena-Barbero
CRETUS, Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela 15705, Spain
Mario Fernández
Galician Association of Agri-food Cooperatives, Santiago de Compostela 15703, Spain
Gumersindo Feijoo
CRETUS, Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela 15705, Spain
Sara González-García
CRETUS, Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela 15705, Spain
María Teresa Moreira
CRETUS, Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela 15705, Spain
Nowadays, food production systems play a relevant role as the steady increase of global population and food demand. The water-energy-food (WEF) nexus is a suitable approach to tackle resources management associated with these three pillars recognizing synergies and trade-offs. Different approaches have been used in the literature to measure the WEF nexus, being material flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle assessment (LCA), two of the most proven methodologies. The MFA approach is based on the amount of resources consumed, while using the LCA perspective considers all flows of the system (LCA footprints approach) or considering only the flows associated with water, energy, and food pillars as the inventory data (WEF-LCA approach). This manuscript compares the three mentioned approaches to identify their strengths and weaknesses. To do this, a sample of 100 Spanish dairy farms is analysed, where a single WEF nexus index (WEFni) is obtained using Data Envelopment Analysis. Results show that only four farms achieved a WEFni equal to 100 in all approaches, while the main difference between them is the number and type of resources considered for calculating the WEF nexus, which could imply a partial identification of hotspots of food systems.
