Data related to the life cycle assessment of 44 artisanally produced french protected designation of origin (PDO) cheeses

Food production is associated with significant environmental impacts. To reduce these, it is first essential to better understand the environmental implications of production processes, and how these can vary among different products. Historically, most studies in this area have focused on comparing environmental impacts among different food categories, but here, we chose to investigate differences at a finer scale, among products belonging to the same category. Cheese was selected as our study model because it is one of the most popular types of food products around the world but is associated with significant environmental impacts. Specifically, we used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of 44 French cheeses that benefit from Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) certification. Our assessments took into account all steps from milk production to the end of the ripening period and the functional unit used was 1 kg of fully ripened cheese. Inventories for milk production were obtained from AGRIBALYSE 3.0. Data on cheeses production stage were collected using PDO specifications, technical datasheets, scientific literature, and three expert opinions. Background inventories (electricity mix, gas production, materials, transport, water, cleaning products) were obtained from the Ecoinvent 3.6 database. Simapro software was used to conduct all LCAs, using the characterization method "EF 3.0 Method (adapted) V1.00 / EF 3.0 normalisation and weighting set". Our final dataset contains details on products, life cycle inventories (LCI), and LCIA results. These data could be useful for cheesemakers seeking to improve the environmental performance of their products.