AGRIBALYSE®, the French LCI Database for agricultural products: high quality data for producers and environmental labelling⋆

Abstract

AGRIBALYSE is a French research program dedicated to producing Life cycle inventories (LCI) of agricultural products, based on a strong partnership of 14 research and technical institutes. It provides a homogenous and consensual LCI database to support environmental labelling policies and to help the agricultural sector to improve its practices. The public LCI database of more than 100 products and its detailed methodology report were published in 2014. The database mainly contains LCIs for average French products, the functional unit is the product mass (kg) and the perimeter cradle-to–farm-gate. The datasets go along with a detailed methodology report and a project report, both available at: www.ademe.fr/agribalyse). Several key objectives for a follow-up project have already been identified: better estimate of uncertainties, accounting for soil carbon dynamics, impacts on biodiversity and impacts of water consumption. Enlargement of the database with additional products and products from innovative systems is also demanded, as well as stronger connections with international programs. These issues should be addressed in a future AGRIBALYSE 2 program.

Keywords

• LCI database
• French agricultural products
• ecolabelling
• ecodesign