Life cycle assessment (LCA) in the olive oil value chain: A descriptive review

Olive oil is considered to be one of the main nutritional components in the Mediterranean diet, which led to an increase in its production, and then it is playing a crucial role in socio-economic development. In spite of the economic importance of olive oil production, there is no doubt that it harms the environment. Thereby, to better mitigate any negative impacts, and to make envi-ronmentally responsible decisions, it is essential to adopt the life cycle assessment (LCA) meth-odology advocated by the two international standards, ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, in order to attain sustainable production.This paper aims to provide a summary of the literature on LCA studies of olives and olive oil production. It presents an overview of thirty-two LCA-related works that have been applied to various scenarios of production involving the valorization of the generated by-products. A description of LCA application, water consumption, and its environmental impacts in the olive oil value chain was covered.This analysis showed that the agricultural phase is the most harmful to the environment. It was also shown that it is possible to eliminate the high environmental pressures by treating the by-products of the olive oil production process and using them as raw materials to produce fertil-izers or composting products. Regarding water consumption, three key parameters are respon-sible for raising or decreasing the consumed volume of water: farming systems, the climate of the investigated region, and olive oil extraction technologies.Finally, this work recommends enhancing and updating databases in order to have more qualitative and quantitative results that can lead to comparisons of studies. It also recommends applying LCA to the olive oil value chain in the Middle East and North Africa.