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PhD THESIS
My PhD thesis was conducted in co-operation
with NTNU (supervisor Annik Magerholm Fet)
and SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture (super-
visor Harald Ellingsen). The starting point was
modern, e.g. commercial Norwegian, fisher-
ies, which are dependent on fossil fuels. This
is problematic from a sustainable viewpoint.
Also, consumers and other byers of fish food
products (FFP) in the value chain of the fish
food product ask for environmental informa-
tion, not only the price.
For the FFP, the main focus of prior research
has been on threatened stock populations.
Less attention has been focused on environ-
mental problems related to the use of energy
and material, not only by the fishing vessel,
but for the whole life cycle of the FFP. This
PhD-project is a contribution to closing this
gap. The overall goal of the research behind
this thesis is to demonstrate a methodol-
ogy for systematic environmental life cycle
assessments (LCA) of FFP with an emphasis
on fishery. LCA has been developed for com-
modity products and this work contributes to
expanding the application to food products.
In my PhD work systems engineering princi-
ples and processes provided the tools to sys-
tematize the analysis of the life cycle of the
FFP, by modelling the fish food production
systems. Systems engineering with input from
LCA, stakeholder analysis and eco-labelling
was used to develop a methodology present-
ed as a framework for environmental analysis
of the fish food product. Three case studies
were combined into a single LCA study of fish
products that has been used to develop and
create an environmental product declaration
(EPD) of Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus). In
parallel, the necessary product category rules
(PCR) for wild caught fish was developed. En-
vironmental performance indicators relevant
for FFP have been explored and a number
of parameters were recommended for use in
communicating the environmental impact of
a FFP.
Greatest attention has been on the fishing
vessels because their energy consumption ac-
counts for the largest environmental impacts
of the FFP. Figure 1 shows the direct fuel con-
sumption for Norwegian fishing vessels for
some species and on the right axes the edible
yield for the fish species. Schau (2012) gives
further details of the method and sources of
data and fuel use for different fishing gears.
The research results contribute to better
transparency about the environmental im-
pact of the life cycle of FFP and thereby sup-
port more sustainable decision-making in the
fishery sector.
In the future, the framework developed for
environmental life cycle assessment of FFPs,
could be expanded to other food products
and so be used to compare different food
products against each other.
Contact information:
Erwin Schau
Scientific Officer, European Commission -
Joint Research Centre (JRC) erwin.m.schau@
gmail.com
PhD thesis submitted at Department of In-
dustrial Economics and Technology Manage-
ment, NTNU
Supervisors: Annik Magerholm Fet, annik.fet@
iot.ntnu.no, Department of Industrial Eco-
nomics and Technology Management, NTNU
and Harald Ellingsen, harald.ellingsen@ntnu.
no, SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture
Figure: Direct fuel consumption of Norwe-
gian fishing vessels for different fish species
and edible yield (Schau, 2012).
Environmental life cycle assessments of fish food
products with emphasis on the fish catch process
-
by Erwin Schau