Oppon, E. orcid.org/0000-0002-5959-3221, Koh, S.C.L., Eufrasio, R. et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Towards sustainable food production and climate change mitigation: an attributional life cycle assessment comparing industrial and basalt rock dust fertilisers. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. ISSN 0948-3349
Abstract
Purpose Food production is set to double by 2050 to feed the increasing world population. This poses a global challenge to minimise environmental impacts from intensified production and use of chemical fertilisers. The study investigates whether basalt rock dust fertiliser can be an environmentally sustainable close substitute to expensive conventional rock-derived P and K fertilisers.
Method The study uses the attributional life cycle assessment method to estimate and compare 15 environmental impacts between basalt rock dust fertiliser, a potential source of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), and five widely used industrial P and K fertilisers. In addition, we model hypothetical basalt substitution rates for PK fertilisers to highlight potential ecological savings in terms of carbon capture.
Results Basalt rock dust fertiliser has minimal embodied environmental impacts across all 15 impact categories, including global warming, compared to industrial P and K fertilisers.
Conclusion Our results suggest that transitioning to milled basalt as a natural geo-fertiliser to support food production may help address several UN Sustainable Development Goals such as ‘Responsible consumption and production’ and ‘Climate Action and Zero Hunger’.
Metadata
Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Life cycle assessment; Environmental impact; Fertilisers; Basalt; Climate change mitigation; Sustainability |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 26 Jul 2023 15:00 |
Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2023 15:00 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-023-02196-4 |