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PRODUCT CATEGORY RULES DATE 2012-08-23 UN CPC 013 FRUITS AND NUTS Where substandard or waste fruits or nuts is used as animal feed this will be regarded as «near to waste treatment» and it is not considered as a displacement of other feedstock. 7.3.2 ALLOCATION TO BY-PRODUCTS Should the production plant generate more than one product, the inputs and outputs of the system should be partitioned between these different products or functions. Partitioning should reflect the underlying physical relationships between them; i.e. they should reflect the manner in which the inputs and outputs are modified by quantitative changes in the products delivered by the system (allocation by mass). For impacts regarding agricultural operations in a farm, allocation among different products should be avoided by considering the impacts of every single operation. For instance with regard to the fuel consumption it shall be estimated the consumption of every single operation onto a certain surface and then divided by the mass of product. Any deviation from these rules must be declared in the LCA and in the EPD. 7.4 DATA QUALITY RULES Assessment of emissions should use data that will reduce bias and uncertainty as far as practicable, by using the best quality data achievable. Specific data (often called site specific data) shall be used for the Core Process. Specific data are gathered from the sites where specific processes are carried out by the producer. The requirement for specific data also includes actual product weights, amounts of inflows and materials used e.g. fertilizers, plant protection products etc, water, packaging, amounts of waste etc, as well as the outflows i.e. the yield of the products produced. Where specific data in the analysed production system are variable as a result of deriving from many orchards or perhaps regions, then the following options are available for data collection on inflows and outflows, in relation to the period of validity of the EPD: Inflows shall be typical of the production system implemented e.g. conventional, organic, low input etc. Specific data per farm must cover at least 90% of the production, except if it can be shown that by suitable sampling/stratified data the ‘between-farm’, ‘between-region’ and the ‘temporal’ variability are adequately covered. In order that sample size is adjusted to cope with inherent uncertainties it shall be derived from proper statistical analysis based on the actual size of the farms population and the standard deviation found through historical data. It should be shown that the standard error of the sample does not exceed by more than 10% the true mean value of the population. Outflow (yield of the product per hectare) is in most cases much more variable than inflows, since -in a disciplined production system- the latter are controlled by the farmer. So, sampling is quite unlikely to render representative yield in kg of product / hectare or the yield factor of m2 of cropland required to produce 1 kg of product. Yield factor is much more critical than inflows for the final results as it is the only divisor of impacts per hectare. The options in such a case are: a) A typical yield factor (m2/kg) is agreed between the interested parties in the area / region under question, based on agronomic parameters and historical data for the area. This can be supported by a production protocol that defines the practices and inflows linked to the typical yield factor. This approach can lead to the maximum period of EPD validity. b) In absence of the above, a second option for a group of farms is to consider the worse-case scenario with regard to inflows and yield factor. In this case also, the maximum period of validity can apply. c) Last option is to consider every production period (cycle) as a unique batch in EPD terms, in which case the period of validity of the EPD will cover only a single production period. Data integrity shall be supported by quality procedures, such as documentation, document control and internal audits. Suitable certification (e.g. GLOBALGAP, LEAF, BRC, IFS) should also be considered. Data records on inputs and outputs shall be available for verification and shall be traceable to the product lot numbers corresponding to the EPD. PAGE 10/18
PRODUCT CATEGORY RULES DATE 2012-08-23 UN CPC 013 FRUITS AND NUTS Specific data for the generation of electricity bought shall be used if possible. If specific data are not available or if the electricity bought is not specified for parts of the Core Module, the electricity mix used in those parts shall be approximated as the official electricity mix in the country of manufacture. The mix of energy shall be documented including renewable sources. Where electricity has been generated locally and where good quality specific data exists on the fuel composition used to generate that electricity then this data should be used to estimate emissions from the electricity rather than the official electricity mix of the country. Electricity data should be verifiable by invoice or similar. 8 UPSTREAM MODULE 8.1 SYSTEM BOUNDARIES All elementary flows at resource extraction shall be included, except for the flows that fall under the general 1% cut-off rule. 8.2 DATA QUALITY RULES Specific data shall be used for operations at the farm(s), e.g. consumption of energy wares, waste generation etc. Selected generic data shall be used for other parts of the LCI, i.e. data from commonly available data sources such as commercial databases and free databases describing specific raw materials or processes usually referring to the system under study or to other systems equivalent from a technical point of view. For allowing the use of selected generic data, a number of pre-set characteristics must be fulfilled and demonstrated: Representativeness of the geographical area should adhere to “Data deriving from areas with the same legislative framework and the same energetic mix”, Technological equivalence adhere to “Data deriving from the same chemical and physical processes or at least the same technology coverage (nature of the technology mix, e.g. weighted average of the actual process mix, best available technology or worst operating unit)”, Boundaries towards nature adhere to “Data shall report all the quantitative information (resources, solid, liquid, gaseous emissions; etc.) necessary for the EPD”, and Boundaries towards technical systems adhere to “The boundaries of the considered life cycle stage shall be equivalent”. Selected generic data can be used for upstream and downstream stages if no specific data is available. Some indicative data sources for generic data are Ecoinvent, ILCD and LCA food database. 8.3 RULES FOR GENERIC DATA If these data sources do not supply the necessary data, other generic data may be used and documented. The environmental impact of the processes where the other generic data are used must not exceed 10% of the overall environmental impact from the product system. Data calculated with system expansion should not be used, but if no other data is available, any negative flows should be changed to zero, see General Programme Instructions. 8.4 OTHER CALCULATION RULES SPECIFIC FOR FRUITS AND NUTS 8.4.1 SOURCES OF EMISSIONS The assessment shall include emissions arising from all processes, inputs and outputs of a crop production system, including but not limited to: PAGE 11/18
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