To improve the environmental performances of apple farming systems, it is first necessary to analyse the current practices and strategies, then identify weak and strong points and finally to define priorities for optimization. Beside ecotoxicity and human toxicity, other impact categories such as global warming potential should be considered to evaluate the overall environmental performance of farming systems. The life cycle analysis (LCA) also named cradle-to-grave analysis permits a quantitative and global evaluation of the orchards’ environmental performance (Milà i Canals et al., 2006), considering numerous impact categories and avoiding burden shift when re-designing farming systems.