Life cycle assessment (lca) and environmental product declaration (epd) of an immunological product for boar taint control in male pigs

Recently, a leading manufacturer of veterinary medicines applied the LCA approach to the production and use of an immunological product for male pigs for the reduction of boar taint. The LCA study involved the facilities where the immunological product is manufactured, a sample at global level of farms where it is used and where the standard method of physical castration for boar taint reduction is adopted to define a benchmark and, finally, a sample of abbattoirs where the final product (pork) is produced for human consumption. The analysis was carried out for two doses of immunological product that is necessary to reduce boar taint in the male pig and, additionally, for the unit mass of pig (so called "live-weight), pig carcass and boneless/fatless pork meat (so called "lean meat"). The saving of carbon footprint respect to the physically castrated pig system is 3.7% in terms of kg live-weight. All the other life-cycle impact indicators show a reduction relative to the benchmark system (physical castration) as well. Scope of this paper is to present the results of this LCA study; complete results are also reported in the publicly available Environmental Product Declaration ( http://www.environdec.com )