With or without pollination? : environmental impacts of Swedish beekeeping systems considering pollination services

Sammanfattning

Beekeeping serves a broader function than only producing honey, it is a multifunctional system that also provides pollination services. Pollination is often difficult to include in life cycle assessments (LCA) since it is a nonphysical product. Ecosystem services that are provided by beekeeping are important for agricultural yield. This study therefore analysed the environmental impact of Swedish honey ready for distribution. It also evaluated how the inclusion of pollination affected the results using three scenarios. In the first scenario, Honeybaseline, environmental impact of honey production was quantified without considering pollination services. In the second scenario, Honeysystem, system expansion was used to include pollination as a co-function through increased yield in oilseed rape. Lastly, in Honeyeconomic, economic allocation was applied to divide economic impact between honey and pollination based on their economic value. In the Honeybaseline scenario the total impact was 0.66 kg carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂-eq) and 0.28 m² annual crop equivalents (a crop eq) per functional unit (500g of honey ready for distribution). The largest contributions originated from maintenance and packaging. In the Honeysystem scenario the results were -3.7 kg CO₂-eq and -11.4 m²a crop eq per functional unit. In the Honeyeconomic scenario, 73% of the impact was allocated to honey and 27% to pollination, reducing the environmental impact of honey to 0.48 kg CO₂-eq and 0.21 m²a crop eq per functional unit. The results show that the inclusion of pollination has a considerable effect on the assessment of honey, particularly when using system expansion and accounting for the environmental credit. The environmental benefits of honey are not captured when pollination is excluded from the system. Thus, pollination should be considered in LCAs of apicultural systems to better represent the multifunctionality of the system and the importance of bees as pollinators.