Environmental life cycle assessment of edible oils: A review of current knowledge and future research challenges

Edible oils constitute an import commodity in terms of food, trade and environmental impacts. This paper discusses the application of life cycle analysis (LCA), an environment management tool, in edible oil systems. Enhancing their environmental performance can play an important role in making a shift towards sustainable agri-food systems. The aim of this review is to collate the LCA studies conducted on edible oil systems, performing a qualitative analysis to identify trends among the key methodological choices in order to assess the level of harmonization and analogy among studies. In addition, the areas worth of further investigation in future LCA applications are highlighted. The review carried out is qualitative and seeks to identify general pattern in the environmental impacts of edible oil systems. The key conclusion of the review is that increased comprehensiveness and harmonization of the methodological considerations is needed for future LCAs in this area. Defining of goals, functional unit and system boundary were having most iterative choices, while allocation criteria was found to have most heterogeneous choices. This attempt at understanding the current research trends of edible oil LCA studies would be useful in responsible addressing of the future research challenges in the area.