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Cheng et al. Carbon Footprints 2024;3:10 Carbon Footprints
DOI: 10.20517/cf.2023.53

Original Article Open Access

Life cycle climate performance of urban plant factory

versus rural greenhouse under China’s power-grid
decarbonization: considering short-lived methane

and nitrous oxide emissions

1
1
2
Yunlai Cheng , Guobao Song 1 , Xiaoyang Liu , Laura Batlle-Bayer , Pere Fullana-i-Palmer 2
1
Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education), School of Environmental Science
and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, Liaoning, China.
2
UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change ESCI-UPF, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Spain.
Correspondence to: Dr. Guobao Song, Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of
Education), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, No. 2 Linggong Road, Ganjingzi
District, Dalian 116024, Liaoning, China. E-mail: gb.song@dlut.edu.cn
How to cite this article: Cheng Y, Song G, Liu X, Batlle-Bayer L, Fullana-i-Palmer P. Life cycle climate performance of urban plant
factory versus rural greenhouse under China’s power-grid decarbonization: considering short-lived methane and nitrous oxide
emissions. Carbon Footprints 2024;3:10. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/cf.2023.53
Received: 27 Nov 2023 First Decision: 19 Apr 2024 Revised: 27 May 2024 Accepted: 27 May 2024 Published: 31 May 2024

Academic Editors: Yuekuan Zhou, Wendong Wei Copy Editor: Fangyuan Liu Production Editor: Fangyuan Liu

Abstract
Plant factories can potentially enhance the climate resilience of urban vegetable production by reducing the losses
from climate hazards but generate high climate burdens - due to consuming carbon-intensive power generated by
coal combustion with upstream methane emissions - unlike rural traditional sunlight greenhouses with nitrous
oxide emissions. Here, we compared the life cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Technical Warming
Potential (TWP) metrics of lettuce production by plant factory and greenhouse, and explored the effect of power
grid decarbonization on the climate performance of the cultivations. Results show that in the baseline scenario
-1
using the southern Chinese grid, the 100-year GWP of plant factory cultivation (14.9 kgCO e kg ) is over 50 times
2
-1
higher than that of the greenhouse (0.27 kgCO e kg ). The nitrous oxide emissions contribute 14% to the GWP of
2
greenhouse, while methane contributes 16% to that of plant factories, which can be reduced to ~4% under a high
grid decarbonization scenario in 2050. Electricity consumption (fertilizer and polyethylene film applications)
shares 43%-99% (80%-89%) of the GWP of plant factory (greenhouse) cultivations. Grid decarbonization
decreases the TWP metrics over time, meaning a rising climate advantage for plant factories. However, plant
factories still fail to compete with greenhouses in mitigating climate change (with TWP ranging from 5-66), except

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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