A Role Of Eco-efficiency In Farm Management? Case Study Of Life Cycle Assessment Of Australian Grains

In the past agriculture has relied on the application of ‘end-of-pipe’ or preventative solutions to environmental problems brought on by the management and production processes that it has adopted. This has led to outcomes and approaches that are single media and process or facility focused. The recent trends in the broader industrial sector have been towards the adoption of ecoefficiency approaches to environmental concerns that have a strong business focus on sustainability, look at multiple media and adopt a lifecycle and systems approach. Eco-efficiency “is reached by the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the life cycle, to a level in line with the earth’s estimated carrying capacity” (World Business Council for Sustainable Development). In practice the objectives of ecoefficiency are to deliver better products that have a lower ecological impact, better meet customer needs and invoke a process of continuous improvement in business process.