The RothC Model to Complement Life Cycle Analyses: A Case Study of an Italian Olive Grove

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a fundamental role in soil health, and its storage in soil is an important element to mitigate climate change. How to include this factor in Life Cycle Assessment studies has been the object of several papers and is still under discussion. SOC storage has been proposed as an additional environmental information in some applications of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). In the framework of wider activity aimed at producing the PEF of olive oil, the RothC model was applied to an olive cultivation located in Lazio region (Italy) to calculate the SOC storage and assess four scenarios representing different agricultural practices. RothC applicability, possible use of its results for improving product environmental performance, and relevance of SOC storage in terms of CO2eq compared to greenhouse gas emissions of the life-cycle of olive oil are discussed in this paper. According to the results, in all scenarios, the contribution in terms of CO2eq associated with SOC storage is remarkable compared to the total greenhouse gas emissions of the olive oil life-cycle. It is the opinion of the authors that the calculation of the SOC balance allows a more proper evaluation of the agricultural products contribution to climate change, and that the indications of the scenarios analysis are useful to enhance the environmental performance of these products. The downside is that the application of RothC requires additional data collection and expertise if compared to the execution of PEF studies.