APPLICAZIONE DI INDICATORI PER LA VALUTAZIONE DELLA SOSTENIBILITA' AMBIENTALE DI UN'AZIENDA AGRITURISTICA CUNEESE

In this work the sustainability of Tetto Garrone farm holidays, located in Roata Rossi (Cuneo province, Italy), was evaluated using three environmental index: LCA Carbon footprint, Water footprint and Ecological footprint. The farm is divided in two sections: an orchard and a holidays farm. The orchard includes: 10 ha of hazelnuts with 10 t of production, 3,5 ha of walnuts with 1 t of production and 1,5 ha of chestnuts with 0,4 t of production. The farm holidays is composed by 8 rooms, it is open 245 days/year and the average night passed by tourist are 3. There are about 400 tourist by year. The environmental evaluation for orchards was performed with LCA Carbon footprint, Water footprint and Ecological footprint. In LCA analysis a system boundary like ¿from cradle to gate¿ was used. System boundary considers only the fruit production without considering the commercialisation and the sales. Carbon footprint analysis was calculated with GaBi 4.2 software that have made possible to establish a system for assess the impact of the orchards. The functional unit selected for this study was kg of CO2 eq/ha. In blue and green Water footprint were considered: rain precipitation data, soil characteristics, crop index, day of fruit production, roots depth and crop yield. In grey Water footprint were considered: orchard surface, quantity of used fertilizers per hectare, quantity fertilizers used for each crop, leached nitrogen quantity and maximum nitrogen concentration naturally present in water and yield. Functional unit selected for this study was m3/ton. In ecological footprint these factors were considered: establishing, initial low yield, high yield, low final production and orchard destruction. For each of these phases was considered the contribution of: fertilizers, metals, plastics and electrics components of tractor, fuel, woods, metals and plastics used for orchards management, orchard surface, electricity, pesticides, surface and cement of storage rooms. The units that compose gha were than calculated: Cropland, Built-up, Pasture, Forest, Energy. The evaluation for whole farm, orchard and farm holidays, was effected with LCA Carbon footprint. The analysis was conducted with GaBi 4.2 software that has allowed to create a farm system model. The model was used to elaborate and organize the collected data. In this LCA assessment has used two functional unit: kg CO2 eq/¿ of sales and kg CO2 eq/bednight. The results of this study allowed to make an assessment of the strengths and the weaknesses of the farm. About the weakness there are some problems for walnut and chestnut productions. The strengths of the farm are: good marketing strategy, rational phytosanitary management, high attention for reuse and recycle of raw materials and the use of renewable energy sources (photovoltaic systems).