Future Australian and international policy directions may require industries to account for their

resource use and emissions. Rural primary industries utilise several types of resources and produce

various emissions. Of particular importance within the Australian context is the use of water and

energy resources, and generation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method to analyse resource issues across the life cycle of a product.

It can systematically identify key areas to improve environmental and economic performance, and can

be applied to agricultural systems. A standardised LCA methodology for primary industries will help

practitioners undertake LCA studies and greatly increase their value by providing results that are

comparable between sectors and industries.

The LCA methodology proposed by URS in this report builds on lessons from a previous literature

review within the same project and a workshop that presented a draft version of the methodology. The

methodology focuses on energy and water use, and greenhouse gas emissions. It is intended to be

consistent with recently developed the LCA standards ISO14040:2006 and ISO14044:2006. The

methods for energy and greenhouse gas emission accounting generally follow established techniques,

such as those of the Australian Greenhouse Office and the International Panel on Climate change.

However, there are no established methods for water use accounting in LCA and the water impact

categories may need refinement and further development.

The success of LCA is dependent on good quality data and will be greatly aided by co-operation across

agricultural sectors, and sharing of data. There is likely to be further effort needed to obtain the

necessary data on water resources and usage rates.

The project was funded by RIRDC, CRDC, Dairy Australia,

Sugar Research and Development Corporation, Australian Pork Limited, RIRDC Chicken Meat

Program and Meat and Livestock Australia.

This report, an addition to RIRDC's diverse range of over 1800 research publications, forms part of

our Global Competitiveness R&D program, which aims to identify the impediments to the

development of a globalIy competitive Australian agricultural sector and supports research investments

on options and strategies for removing these impediments.