LCA of local and imported tomato: an energy and water trade-off Sandra Payen a, b, * , Claudine Basset-Mens b , Sylvain Perret c a ADEME, (Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie), 20 avenue du Gr esill e e BP 90406, 49004 Angers, France b CIRAD, UPR Hortsys, ELSA, 34398 Montpellier, France c CIRAD, UMR G-Eau, 34398 Montpellier, France article info Article history: Received 14 January 2014 Received in revised form 1 October 2014 Accepted 5 October 2014 Available online xxx Keywords: Environmental impacts LCA Water deprivation Off-season tomato France Morocco abstract The environmental impact of imported fresh agricultural products, such as off-season vegetables transported over long distances, is under growing scrutiny. We hypothesised that the environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) ranking between local and imported vegetables might change depending on the impact category considered. We focused on the case study of off-season tomatoes produced in Morocco under unheated greenhouses in a water-scarce area, which covers 68% of the fresh tomatoes imported to France. First, we performed a cradle-to-market gate LCA of the Moroccan production using primary data based on a field survey. Second, we applied the same Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method to published cradle-to-farm-gate results of the French tomato cropping system, which also provides off- season tomatoes to the French market and which is characterised by heated greenhouses with a high level of inputs. In addition to typical environmental impact categories, the freshwater use impact was included. The ranking between imported and local tomatoes was different depending on the impact category. Freshwater use had greater impacts under the Moroccan arid climate: 28.0 L H 2 O eq kg 1 of Moroccan tomato and 7.5 L H 2 O eq kg 1 of French tomato. Conversely, the higher level of artificialisation of the French production resulted in greater impacts on total energy consumption, global warming, and eutrophication, even including transport to France for the Moroccan tomato. This reveals a trade-off between freshwater use impacts and the usual/other impacts, mostly energy-related. At the farm gate, we found that the Moroccan tomato water consumption highly contributed to the total damages to Human Health (14%), and Ecosystems (20%) (contribution to Resources depletion was only 2%). Therefore, ignoring the impacts of freshwater use in LCA also underestimates the damages. Moreover, we showed that the assessment of freshwater use impacts and damages still has shortcomings, leading to an un- derestimation of the impact for the Moroccan tomato case. These results emphasised the importance of considering all of the impact categories when performing an agricultural LCA and the need for a more comprehensive method for assessing the impacts of freshwater use. In particular, the use of an opera- tional tool for estimating water and solute fluxes at the field level is recommended to feed freshwater impact assessment methods. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In Northern developed countries, the consumption of fresh agricultural products is currently regular and diversified throughout the year (Freshfel, 2012). In Europe, to meet consumers' year-round demand for fresh vegetables, off-season fresh products are either imported or produced in artificialised cropping systems, such as heated greenhouses. In this context, the environmental impacts attached to the year-round supply of fresh vegetables are receiving increasing attention (Sim et al., 2007; Webb et al., 2013). This is particularly important when imported vegetables are water- demanding crops grown in water-scarce areas. The case of fresh tomatoes marketed in France in winter is a typical illustration of these issues. The tomato is the most consumed fresh vegetable in France, and its production requires much water. Off-season tomatoes are either produced locally in heated greenhouses or imported from Morocco and Spain. Morocco (North Africa) is the primary supplier of the French market, with 68% of the imported off-season tomatoes (French customs); pro- duction for export is located in the Souss-Massa region (West * Corresponding author. ADEME, (Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie), 20 avenue du Gr esill e e BP 90406, 49004 Angers, France. Tel.: þ33(0)4 67 61 59 24. E-mail addresses: payen.sandra@gmail.com, sandra.payen@cirad.fr (S. Payen). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.10.007 0959-6526/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2014) 1e10 Please cite this article in press as: Payen, S., et al., LCA of local and imported tomato: an energy and water trade-off, Journal of Cleaner Production (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.10.007