Environmental Sustainability Assessment to Drive Strawberry Breeding: The Case of Breeding Value Project

Strawberry is a valuable crop produced in the EU, with an upward consumption trend due to its health-promoting and sensory attributes. The European strawberry market is estimated to be USD 3.8 billion. Thus, to foster sustainable and competitive production, efforts are underway to develop new cultivars that address the demand for innovative cultivation systems and high-quality produce. This initiative is crucial given the challenges climate change poses and the need for environmental preservation. Although breeding programs predominantly emphasize factors such as yield and overall nutritional quality parameters, there is a gap in their consideration of environmental performance. This gap must be addressed to help the strawberry industry adopt environmentally sustainable agricultural practices and contribute to global efforts to mitigate climate change. Using life cycle assessment (LCA), we evaluated the environmental performance of tunnel strawberry production in soilless-based field trials. Primary data regarding different cultivars were collected from partners in Italy and the UK. A cradle-to-farm gate assessment was conducted using a functional unit (FU) of 1 kg fresh strawberry. Environmental impacts were assessed using the Environmental Footprint 3.1 method. Results showed varying environmental performance of the systems across various impact categories. The climate change scores ranged between 0.47 to 0.56 kg CO2 eq./FU. Infrastructure and the soilless substrate (coir and peat) were the greatest drivers of the impacts, which could be mitigated by lifespan extension, increased recycling, and substrate reuse. This study underscores the importance of including environmental sustainability in multi-criteria decision-making for breeding materials.