Environmental impact of rabbit production systems: a farm-based cradle-to-gate analysis

Rabbit meat could represent a sustainable protein source in a context of growing demand for animal products, but information about its environmental footprint and key hotspots along the production chain remain limited. The present study aimed at providing a multifaceted evaluation of the environmental impact associated with rabbit meat production considering the whole production cycle, by using primary data collected from 46 commercial farms and six interviews with academic and industry experts and technicians of the field. An attributional cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment model encompassed all the main production stages, from the birth of the rabbits to their sale to the slaughterhouse, and included two sub-models covering the breeding and the fattening phases. System boundaries were set to consider the impact associated with the animal and manure management, the production of the feeds consumed by animals and the farm use of the energy sources. The assessed impact categories were global warming potential (GWP, kg CO2-eq), acidification potential (AP, g SO2-eq), eutrophication potential (EP, g PO4-eq), cumulative energy demand (CED, MJ), land occupation (LO, m2/y), abiotic depletion - elements (ADE, mg Sb-eq) and fossil energy (MJ), water scarcity (m3-eq) and terrestrial (TECO, kg 1-4,DB), freshwater (FECO, kg 1-4,DB) and marine (MECO, kg 1-4,DB) ecotoxicity. The functional unit was 1 kg live weight (LW), and the time reference was 1 year. Considering the whole production cycle, the production of 1 kg LW of meat rabbit generated an average of 2.56 kg CO2-eq (GWP) and 3.19 kg CO2-eq (GWP_LUC) with gas contribution 60% CO2, 26% N2O, 14% CH4; 46 g SO2-eq (AP), 21 g PO4-eq (EP), 32 MJ (CED), 4.6 m2 (LO) and 2.4 m3-eq (water scarcity). The average values for abiotic depletion categories were 2.6 mg Sb-eq (ADE) and 24 MJ (abiotic depletion - fossil energy); ecotoxicity values were 0.3, 2.9 and 269 kg 1,4-DCB for TECO, FECO and MECO, respectively. The fattening phase contributed more (65%, on average) than the breeding phase (35%) to the environmental impact for all the impact categories. Feed production accounted for more than 65% of the impact in EP, CED, water scarcity and abiotic depletion - fossil energy categories, and almost the unique responsible (98-100%) for LO, TECO and FECO categories. According to our study, the environmental impact of rabbit meat production is intermediate between those of poultry and pig meat productions. The fattening phase emerged as a priority area for future mitigation strategies that will address the impact related to feed production.