Abstract
Greenhouse tomato cultivation in Western Turkey is a vital economic driver, yet it is characterized by intensive resource consumption and notable environmental impacts. This study evaluates the eco-efficiency and carbon footprint of 48 greenhouse tomato operations in Izmir province using a combined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. A cradle-to-farm gate system boundary was defined, with a functional unit of 1 ton of marketable tomatoes. The baseline LCA results revealed an average carbon footprint of 324.5 kg CO2-eq per ton of tomatoes, with coal-based heating (42%), electricity for irrigation (28%), and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (18%) identified as the primary environmental hotspots. The DEA model indicated that only 14 of the 48 assessed greenhouse farms were operating on the frontier of eco-efficiency (score of 1.0), while the average eco-efficiency score across all operations was 0.78. By optimizing input allocations to match the targets established by the DEA frontier, the average carbon footprint could be reduced by 22.4% to 251.8 kg CO2-eq per ton without compromising crop yields. This study demonstrates that integrating LCA and DEA provides greenhouse managers and agricultural policy-makers with a robust, quantitative tool to identify operational inefficiencies, reduce environmental burdens, and promote sustainable greenhouse management practices in the Mediterranean basin.
