Miljöpåverkan av hund- och kattfoder ur ett livscykelperspektiv

Sammanfattning: This study investigates the environmental impact from dog food and cat food produced in Sweden. With over 2.5 million dogs and cats in Sweden the potential environmental effect from their food is relevant to investigate. The aim of this study is therefore to quantify the environmental impact of 1 kg dog and cat food sold by Granngården. This has been done with the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. For the assessment, the impact categories global warming, acidification, eutrophication and land use, were used. The results indicates that the production of the ingredients have the largest negative impact on the environment. Furthermore, the result show that the vegetable ingredients have a larger impact than the animal ingredients. This is due to that only animal-by-products are used and therefore the environment burden can be allocated between human food and the by-products used in the pet food. Additionally, the result show that the cat food has a larger environmental impact than the dog food. The main reason for this is that the cat food contains rice, which has been pointed out as a hotspot. A recommendation is therefore to replace rice from cat food production to lower its environmental impact. To improve the scientific quality of the study, a sensitivity analysis been performed on the various choices done throughout the study. It shows that whether an economic or mass allocation is used, has little effect on the result. However, if no allocation is done it effects the result significantly. Furthermore, the total effect on climate change from the food vary depending on how the transportation is calculated. In comparison to other studies, this result shows a lower environmental impact. This is mainly due to different production conditions in the studies. Finally, can it be concluded that there are some possibilities to lower the products environmental impact even more.