Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Mediterranean Sea Bass and Sea Bream

Abstract

The aquaculture sector is the fastest growing food production industry, with sea bass and sea bream consisting important exporting goods in the Mediterranean region. This work presents results of a life cycle assessment of Mediterranean sea bass and sea bream, based on primary data collected from a Greek producer. The system boundary included fish feed production and the rearing operation, as well as the packaging and delivery processes, which were neglected in preceding literature studies. The life cycle inventory developed addressed previous data gaps in the production of Mediterranean aquaculture species. Comparison to preceding studies revealed differences on the production inventories and identified methodological choices leading to variability. Packaging and delivery processes were found to contribute approximately 40% towards the global warming score. The production of both sea bass and sea bream was shown to come with high eutrophication impacts occurring from the rearing stage. The feed production was identified as the most environmental impact intensive process throughout the life cycle. Sea bass came with lower environmental impacts per unit live mass, which was reversed when the species were compared on a protein basis. The replicable and transparent model presented here, contributes towards the more accurate quantification of the environmental impacts associated with Mediterranean aquaculture species and supports efforts aiming to promote environmental protection through dietary change.

Manila Clam and Mediterranean Mussel Aquaculture is Sustainable and a Net Carbon Sink

“…The total absence of drugs, antibiotics, pesticides, or disinfectants in mollusk farming leads to lower HTP and AETP values than those found in intensive aquaculture, that are at least several order of magnitude higher. For example, as reported by Kallitsis (Kallitsis et al, 2020) et al, HTP for sea bass and sea bream aquaculture are 2.59 and 2.82 kg 1,4-DCB eq/kg, and MAETP of >10 6 kg 1,4-DCB eq/kg. Note that MAETP has large absolute values for all options, because MAETP has a higher normalization reference value compared to the HTP category (Xu et al, 2013).…”

“…For the sake of comparison, intensive fed aquaculture of sea bass and sea bream (Kallitsis et al, 2020) have shown an EP of 0.189 and 0.142 kgPO 4 eq/kg, respectively. Pelletier et al (2007) have reported a value of 0.049 kgPO 4 eq/kg for farmed salmon as an average of data collected in Norway, UK, Canada, and Chile (Pelletier et al, 2009).…”

Hot-Spot Analysis and Scenario-Driven Life Cycle Assessment of Authenticated Greek PDO “Avgotaracho Mesolongiou”

“…Production of seabass and seabream in Greek fish farms was environmentally assessed from "cradle to gate" using LCA. More specifically based on primary data from producers, the feed production process exhibited the highest impact while the importance of feed conversion rate is also highlighted [50][51][52]. A "gate to gate" approach for seabass and meagre production focused on packaging potential for GHG neutrality [53].…”

A stratified compartmental model for the transmission of Sparicotyle chrysophrii (Platyhelminthes: Monogenea) in gilthead seabream ( Sparus aurata ) fish farms

“…In Europe, aquaculture contributed to 10% of the total fish production in 2020 [1]. However, Mediterranean aquaculture is also known to bear negative impacts on the environment and the marine habitat [2], impairing water and bottom sediment quality [3][4][5]. In addition, the expansion of fish farming in cages has been linked to the spread of infectious diseases, pathogens and parasites [6].…”