Open Access

Prashant Mandal

• The environmental impact of year-round greenhouse vegetable production, particularly in high latitude region such as the Emsland district in Lower Saxony, Germany, has raised concerns. It has latitude 52,362324 and longitude 7,269548 with temperature from 10°C to 25 in summer and temperature ranges from -1°C to 7°C in winter. In this context, two gardens with different climatic conditions, represented by the gardeners DE from Germany and ES from Spain, were considered. The latter is located at latitude 41,39467 and longitude 2,157998, with summer temperatures ranging from 20 to 30°C and winter temperatures from 10 to 15°C. Greenhouse vegetable production requires significant energy inputs for heating and lighting, particularly during the winter months. However, the environmental implications of using renewable energy sources like hydroelectricity and the effects of other production strategies on the environment have not been adequately investigated. To address this knowledge gap, a life cycle assessment (LCA) of greenhouse tomato production for year-round production in 2022 has been conducted, including processes from seedling planting in a pre-build greenhouse structure to distribution at two locations: the ES Gardner in Spain and the DE Gardner in Germany. The study used the OpenLCA software and followed the ReCipe 2016 Mid-Point (H) impact assessment methodology. Our analysis revealed that, across the two main production seasons, the highest global warming potential (GW) was observed during year-round production in Spain. The following aspects were discovered to have a significant influence on the environmental impact: Packaging material, transportation, heating systems, electricity, land usage, and irrigation methods. Overall, it was determined that year-round production in Germany had the least detrimental environmental impact among the examined production types. The use of packaging material, electricity for heating the greenhouse and transportation was the primary contributor to most of the impact categories. Conversely, the application of fertilizers and manures during extended seasonal and year-round production had a lower environmental impact.