Integrating water footprint in the eco-efficiency assessment of Brazilian chilled chicken

Brazil is one of the largest chicken producers, generating food and promoting economic benefits for several stakeholders. However, these production systems can also promote environmental impacts, including water resources. This study aimed to perform an eco-efficiency assessment of 1 kg of chicken meat in Brazil, combining Water Footprint (WF) profile and Life Cycle Costing in an innovative approach to identify hotspots and improvement opportunities. Eco-efficiency was based on ISO 14045:2012. The WF evaluation applied the ISO14046:2014 to analyze the water-related profile from cradle-to-slaughterhouse gate, including the following categories: marine eutrophication, freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, human toxicity cancer, and non-cancer, and water use. The chicken farm was the process with higher water impacts, higher value-adding, and worst eco-efficiency. The wastewater treatment, chilling, and evisceration were the hotspot processes at the manufacturing stage. Three scenarios were investigated: one for the fattening process and two for the wastewater treatment process. Scenario's analysis showed that the eco-efficiency of chilled chicken may increase by 28 % with a diet based on maize and soybean instead of an average global diet (scenario 1). The scenarios regarding wastewater treatment showed little difference in relation to the baseline situation, showing good current practices at industrial wastewater treatment. This study shows that to improve the chilled chicken economic and environmental performance, it is necessary to reduce the WF at diet production. It also highlights the importance of evaluating eco-efficiency instead of focusing only in environmental results when searching for hotspots and improvement opportunities.