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Vertical farming has emerged in urban areas as an approach to provide more resilient food production. However, a substantial share of the material requirements come from outside their urban environments. With urban environments producing a large share of residual and waste streams, extensive protential exists to employ these material and energy streams as inputs in urban farming systems to promote more circular economy approaches. The aim of this article is to assess the environmental performance of employing residual material flows for vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments in order to support more circular, resilient, and sustainable urban food supply. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to assess replacing conventional growing media and fertilizers with urban residual streams. Paper, compost, and brewers’ spent grains were assessed for replacements to conventional gardening soil employed in the studied system. Biogas digestate was also assessed as a replacement for conventional fertilizers used in the recirculating water bath. The results suggest that large environmental performance benefits are illustrated when conventional growing media is replaced. Although not as significant, employing fertilizers from residual urban streams also leads to large potential benefits, suggesting the two residual streams have the potential for more circular hydroponic systems.
Michael Martin; Sofia Poulikidou; Elvira Molin. Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming. Sustainability 2019, 11, 6724 .
AMA StyleMichael Martin, Sofia Poulikidou, Elvira Molin. Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (23):6724.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael Martin; Sofia Poulikidou; Elvira Molin. 2019. "Exploring the Environmental Performance of Urban Symbiosis for Vertical Hydroponic Farming." Sustainability 11, no. 23: 6724.
With an expanding population and changing dynamics in global food markets, it is important to find solutions for more resilient food production methods closer to urban environments. Recently, vertical farming systems have emerged as a potential solution for urban farming. However, although there is an increasing body of literature reviewing the potential of urban and vertical farming systems, only a limited number of studies have reviewed the sustainability of these systems. The aim of this article was to understand the environmental impacts of vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments applied to a case study vertical hydroponic farm in Stockholm, Sweden. This was carried out by evaluating environmental performance using a life cycle perspective to assess the environmental impacts and comparing to potential scenarios for improvement options. The results suggest that important aspects for the vertical hydroponic system include the growing medium, pots, electricity demand, the transportation of raw materials and product deliveries. By replacing plastic pots with paper pots, large reductions in GHG emissions, acidification impacts, and abiotic resource depletion are possible. Replacing conventional gardening soil as the growing medium with coir also leads to large environmental impact reductions. However, in order to further reduce the impacts from the system, more resource-efficient steps will be needed to improve impacts from electricity demand, and there is potential to develop more symbiotic exchanges to employ urban wastes and by-products.
Michael Martin; Elvira Molin. Environmental Assessment of an Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farming System in Sweden. Sustainability 2019, 11, 4124 .
AMA StyleMichael Martin, Elvira Molin. Environmental Assessment of an Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farming System in Sweden. Sustainability. 2019; 11 (15):4124.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael Martin; Elvira Molin. 2019. "Environmental Assessment of an Urban Vertical Hydroponic Farming System in Sweden." Sustainability 11, no. 15: 4124.