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Food products, and consequently the agricultural sector, generate a significant share of environmental impacts. In order to better assess these environmental impacts, specifiers in the agriculture and food sector are increasingly turning to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This method makes it possible to calculate environmental scores according to several criteria (called environmental impact categories), throughout the life cycle. This is known as a "cradle to grave" assessment, or from the extraction of raw materials to the end of life. An important methodological question arises when carrying out an LCA of a multi-product system: that of assigning the right environmental load to each of the products.
The meat sector is directly concerned by these allocation choices since, in addition to the main product, meat, an animal also produces other co-products that may have various outlets (food or not). These are, for example, offal, leather or blood. Three methods of physical, economic and biophysical allocation are generally used but their application gives different results. It was necessary to provide a means to compare these different methods.
The elements presented were obtained in the framework of the project: "Allocation for Life Cycle Assessment of meat co-products: Development of a calculation software and a database of biophysical, mass and economic allocation factors" carried out in collaboration between INRAE, Idele and Célène, and funded by Interbev between June 2019 and June 2020. You can find more details in the project sheet and the final report.
You can find here :

• a software tool, and a reference database that will allow access (database) or calculation (software) of economic, mass and biophysical allocation factors for a wide range of cattle and sheep. A "calf" category, separate from the rest of the cattle, has been created.
• Allocation data for the different co-products and for the main French cattle and sheep breeds. These data can be used directly by LCA practitioners.