Ecological hotspots of the journey of a South African citrus fruit

The global increase in production and consumption of food, particularly fruits and vegetables, poses significant threats to the environment and food security. The increased food production has led to an increased use of resources such as land, water, and fossil fuel for cultivation. Furthermore, the yearly 30% global post-harvest losses and waste of fruits and vegetables represent a significant water and energy loss, thereby contributing to global greenhouse gas emissions. Amidst these concerns, the environmental impact of fruit and vegetables value chain, particularly the transcontinental cold chain, is gaining attention but remains largely unexplored. Using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, this study addresses the environmental impact of the intercontinental value chain of citrus, chosen as a representative product. We aim to complement the existing life cycle inventory models and provide a comprehensive analysis of the ecological hotspots of environmental impacts of the citrus value chain, from its origin in South Africa to its destination in the Netherlands. The results reveal that cultivation contributes up to ~99% to the environmental impact of water use and to 68% to the environmental impacts associated with freshwater ecotoxicity. In the post-harvest stages, overseas shipment contributes 62%, to the impact of photochemical ozone formation, followed by circa 52% to the impact of marine eutrophication. The production of cardboard boxes, used to transport citrus fruits from the packaging house until the retailer, shows generally the second highest impact scores among the post-harvest stages. Through the analysis of a weighted single score, the pre-harvest activities emerge as the main contributor to the overall weighted environmental impact of the citrus value chain, standing at 56%, primarily due to irrigation and chemical usage. Despite limitations concerning the use of average or punctual data for certain processes, our data model and its subsequent analysis represent a starting point in assessing the environmental sustainability of intercontinental fruit and vegetable value chains. Hence, this work establishes a valuable basis for developing a digital twin as a monitoring tool for supply chain stakeholders, adaptable to different fruit and vegetable value chains, thus facilitating the identification of stage-to-stage environmentally sustainable practices.