Over the last few years, agro-biogas has been receiving great attention since it enables replacement of natural gas, thereby representing a tool which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts. In this context, this paper is aimed at the application of the Carbon Footprint (CF) to an agrobiogas supply chain (SC) in Southern Italy, according to ISO/TS 14067:2013, so as to calculate the related 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP100). The topic was addressed because agro-biogas SCs, though being acknowledged worldwide as sustainable ways to produce both electricity and heat, can be source of GHG emissions and therefore environmental assessments and improvements are needed. Additionally, the performed literature review highlighted deficiencies in PCF assessments, so this study could contribute to enriching the international knowledge on the environmental burdens associated with agro-biogas SCs. The analysis was conducted using a life-cycle approach, thus including in the assessment: functional unit choice, system border definition and inventory analysis development. The primary data needed was provided by a farm located in the province of Foggia (Apulia region in Southern Italy), already equipped with anaerobic digestion and cogeneration plant for biogas production and utilisation. Results from this study are in agreement with those found by some of the most relevant studies in the sector. Indeed, it was possible to observe that GWP100 was almost entirely due to cropland farming and, in particular, to the production of ammonium nitrate in the amount required for fertilisation. Furthermore, environmental credits were observed thanks to: carbon sequestration enabled by no-tillage practice; and avoided production of chemical fertiliser thanks to 50% organic farming. Based upon the results obtained, a sensitivity analysis was carried out, thus highlighting reduced environmental impacts if ammonium nitrate was replaced with urea. Finally, thanks to this study, all the target stakeholders will learn more about the input/output flows involved in the system analysed, the related environmental impacts and the improvements needed to reduce them. In this way, it could be possible to compare the analysed agro-biogas SC with others of equal functionality, and so to enable considerations to be made on the resulting similarities and differences in terms of methodological approach, inventory flows and environmental impact.

In recent years, the oil shortage and fossil fuel environmental impact have driven the most Developed Countries to utilize renewable energy and, in particular, biomass. However the 1st generation of biofuels seems to be unsustainable because it competes with food production. On the other hand, microalgal-based biofuels (considered the 3rd generation) show great promise as a sustainable alternative to conventional transport fuel. Bioenergy from microalgae is an useful substitute for energy crops for high biomass yield, CO2 absorption and water pollutant removal. Nevertheless economic analyses have shown elevated costs in producing biodiesel from microalgae. For these reasons, efforts are currently being made to improve biomass yield or to facilitate lipid excretion from algae cells by genetic modifications. However to date a limited amount of research is being carried out to assess the environmental aspects of microalgae production. In this context, through the available scientific references, this paper aims to critically analyze these environmental problems considering some impacts: greenhouse gas emissions, energy balance, water demand and polluting effluents.

Food packaging systems are designed to perform series of functions mainly aimed at containing and protecting foods during their shelf-lives. However, to perform those functions a package causes environmental impacts that affect food supply chains and that come from its life-cycle phases. Therefore, package design should be done based upon not only the issues of cost, food shelf-life and safety, as well as practicality, but also of environmental sustainability. For this purpose, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be applied in the packaging fieldwith the aimof highlighting environmental hotspots and improvement potentials, thus enablingmore eco-friendly products. In this context, an LCA of foamy polystyrene (PS) trays used for fresh meat packaging was performed here. The study highlighted that the highest environmental impacts come from PS-granule production and electricity consumption. In this regard, the authors underscored that there are no margins for improvement in the production of the granules and in the transport of the material inputs involved as well as of the trays to users. On the contrary, changing the energy source into a renewable one (by installing, for instance, a wind power plant) would enable a 14% damage reduction. In this way, the authors documented that alternative ways can be found for global environmental improvement of the system analysed and so for enhanced environmental sustainability of food packaging systems.

Agro-biogas from energy crops and by-products is a renewable energy carrier that can potentially contribute to climate changemitigation. In this context, application of the methodology defined by the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC (RED) was performed in order to estimate the 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP100) associated with an agro-biogas supply chain (SC) in Southern Italy. Doing so enabled calculation of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission saving in order to verify if it is at least equal to 35% compared to the fossil fuel reference system, as specified by the RED. For the assessment, an attributional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach (International Organization for Standardization (ISO), 2006a,b) was integrated with the RED methodology applied following the guidelines reported in COM(2010)11 and updated by SWD(2014)259 and Report EUR 27215 EN (2015). Moreover, primary data were collected with secondary data extrapolated from the Ecoinvent database system. Results showed that the GWP100 associated with electricity production through the biogas plant investigatedwas equal to 111.58 g CO2eq MJe −1 and so a 40.01%GHG-emission savingwas recorded compared to the RED reference. The highest contribution comes from biomass production and, in particular, fromcrop cultivation due to production of ammonium nitrate in the overall amount used for crop cultivation. Based upon the findings of the study, the GHG saving calculated slightly exceeds the related minimum proposed by the RED: therefore, improvements are needed anyway. In particular, the authors documented that through replacement of ammonium nitrate with urea the GHG-emission savingwould increase to almost 68%, thus largely satisfying the RED limit. In addition, the study highlighted that conservation practices, such as NT, can significantly enable reduction of the GHG-emissions coming fromagricultural activities. Therefore, those practices should be increasingly adopted for cultivation of energy crops, because the latter significantly contribute to biogas production yield enhancement.

Il melograno è un albero originario dell'Asia centrale il cui utilizzo è stato rivaluto negli ultimi anni grazie agli studi scientifici sulle sue proprietà terapeutiche e la cui coltivazione potrebbe offrire ai settori agricolo ed industriale italiani nuove prospettive di sviluppo. Nel testo l'attenzione è focalizzata non solo sugli aspetti meramente tecnici come quelli merceologici, agricoli ed economici, ma anche sull’impatto di questa coltura sull’ambiente. Si è ritenuto, infatti, di fondamentale importanza fornire alcune linee guida sulla valutazione della sostenibilità di una coltivazione di melograno in riferimento ad uno degli obiettivi dall’attuale politica agricola comune dell’Unione europea che contemplano la tutela dell’ambiente.

Negli ultimi sessant’anni le abitudini alimentari dei consumatori sono cambiate radicalmente. Frutta e verdura, ad esempio, sono passate da mero nutrimento ad oggetto di consumo edonistico la cui produzione è orientata non più a varietà locali ma ad altre provenienti da tutto il mondo. Le scelte sono effettuate prevalentemente per le caratteristiche estetiche del prodotto come pezzatura, colore ed aspetto esterno piuttosto che per il sapore o il legame con il territorio. Sono privilegiati i vegetati di grosse dimensioni, privi di difetti e ottenuti mediante un sistema di coltivazione intensivo ad elevato consumo di risorse ed impatto ambientale. Fortunatamente negli ultimi tempi c’è stata la riscoperta del cibo “sano”, in grado di prevenire le patologie, grazie ad una maggiore informazione e sensibilità del consumatore circa gli aspetti salutistici degli alimenti. Inoltre i consumatori sono attenti a ciò che mangiano, all’origine dei prodotti, alla tradizione, alla territorialità ed alla salvaguardia della biodiversità. Per questi motivi nell’attuale mercato agro-alimentare è aumenta l’esigenza sia di fornire prodotti con standard qualitativi e di sicurezza più elevati che in passato, sia di tutelare il consumatore e l’ambiente. Il tale contesto il presente libro esamina tre differenti colture: il nespolo, il lupino e la canapa, considerate per lo più marginali rispetto ad altre più redditizie come la pesca, la fragola, l’uva da tavola, il pomodoro, ecc. Tali “antiche” colture, grazie alla loro rusticità ed eccellenti caratteristiche nutrizionali, potrebbero contribuire allo sviluppo territoriale pugliese, alla tutela dell’ambiente mediterraneo, al miglioramento della salute del consumatore e all’incremento del reddito degli agricoltori. Quest’ultimo aspetto potrebbe rappresentare un valido strumento per ridurre lo spopolamento e l’abbandono delle attività agricole nelle zone marginali, fenomeno registrato negli ultimi decenni soprattutto nelle aree svantaggiate. Inoltre la riscoperta di tali specie permetterebbe di estendere i concetti di conservazione e valorizzazione delle specie vegetali di interesse agricolo, contribuendo alla riduzione dell’erosione genetica. Si ritiene, infine, che oltre alle azioni precedentemente suggerite la valorizzazione del nespolo, canapa e lupino debba essere sostenuta da investimenti diretti, alla conoscenza, all’innovazione tecnologica, al miglioramento genetico e alla ottimizzazione della gestione agronomica con il supporto e collaborazione tra gli Enti di promozione locali, l’Università e gli agricoltori.

Currently road safety, traffic congestion, acoustic and environmental pollution affecting urban areas around the world, represent the challenges to be faced for the implementation of sustainable mobility. To contrast a future increase of these issues it has been implemented the “sustainable mobility policy" in different Nations. In Italy in 1998 the Decree of the Ministry of the Environment has established the figure of Mobility Manager (MM) to implement sustainable mobility in the urban areas and in particular in companies (private and public) with more than 300 employees (or with a total of 800 workers distributed in several branch). One of the tool that can be used by MM is the “plan of employee’s movement from home to work place and return” (Piano Spostamento Casa Lavoro -PSCL). Although in 2004 the University of Foggia has appointed the MM to date no PSCL has been edited. In this context, the aim of this study is to propose a PSCL describing how the employees of University of Foggia reach the workplace and to suggest alternative sustainable transportation typologies. In particular, to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions identified to improve the mobility of workers, the carbon footprint (CF) methodology was applied. The study has been focused only on the main building of Foggia’s University (Athenaeum) that include the major part of workers. The research shows that: 1) university’s employees reach workplace principally by car (84%); 2) this transport contributes to the release of nearly 64 tons of CO2; 3) car pooling and/or public transport (urban and extra-urban) presents a sustainable solution to reduce GHG emissions; 4) if these sustainable transportations were implemented the emissions of GHG could be reduced by 56% (equal to 36 t of CO2).

Negli ultimi anni la consapevolezza della insostenibilità ambientale dei biocombustibili di prima generazione quelli, cioè, ottenuti da piantagioni specifiche per fini energetici come colza, mais, ecc, ha spinto i ricercatori a trovare nuove soluzioni tecnologiche. Le microalghe, grazie alla facilità di coltivazione e alle elevare rese in biomassa, sembrano essere una valida alternativa ai carburanti ecologici tradizionali. Nonostante questi vantaggi, però, allo stato attuale non esiste ancora una produzione industriale su larga scala soprattutto per il loro elevato costo economico ed energetico rispetto alle coltivazioni energetiche dedicate. Le sfide per il prossimo futuro sono, quindi, il miglioramento genetico attraverso l’impiego delle biotecnologie per ottenere specie algali con maggiori rese in biomassa e olio, la risoluzione dei problemi tecnici relativi al funzionamento degli impianti (fouling, contaminazione del mezzo di coltura, controllo dei parametri operativi, ecc.) e alle successive fase del processo produttivo (separazione delle cellule algali dal mezzo acquoso, estrazione dell’olio, ecc.) e la valorizzazione commerciale dei sottoprodotti

Microalgae are a potential source of raw materials for the food, pharmaceutical and energy sector where, in particular, it is possible to produce more sustainable fuels. Despite the considerable potentiality of these vegetable organisms, their cultivation is not currently economically viable, since the production of biomass is not high enough to offset the huge costs of facilities management. Therefore, researchers have developed two lines of research such as the improvement of technological growth systems (photobioreactors and open pond) and the development of transgenic microalgae. This paper describes and analyzes the various interventions of genetic modification that have been made in recent years on microalgae, aimed at increasing yields in biomass and production of biodiesel, hydrogen and ethanol.

Recently, the great attention to high fibre diet increases the importance of a proper selection of raw materials to be used for producing cereal-based products. In this context, wheat bran turns out to be an interesting ingredient, due to its high fibre contents. Wheat bran can exert many physiological benefits, representing also a good substrate for useful lactic bacteria. The modern milling process based on the use of rollers is a rapid system that allows a gradual reduction of the endosperm to desired particle sizes, but bran and germ are separated. On the contrary, the most ancient milling process uses two stones to grind wheat kernels producing flour rich in vitamins, minerals, fibres and antioxidants. The modern roller milling process replaced the stone mill because is able to work larger amounts of seeds, but the resulting flours are deprived of nutritional compounds, compromised by the high temperature generally reached with the rollers. Technological options have to be adopted when whole wheat or bran enriched flours are used to produce cereal-based products because bran and germ particles generally produce a less homogeneous mixture which can physically interfere with a proper structure development. In the current work an overview of stone mills available at national levels will be presented. A mass balance of raw materials used during milling with stones, compared to process with modern rollers will be also provided. The process variables to be used during food production with enriched flours are also discussed.

Negli ultimi sessant’anni le abitudini alimentari dei consumatori sono cambiate radicalmente. Frutta e verdura, ad esempio, sono passate da mero nutrimento ad oggetto di consumo edonistico la cui produzione è orientata non più a varietà locali ma ad altre provenienti da tutto il mondo. Le scelte sono effettuate prevalentemente per le caratteristiche estetiche del prodotto come pezzatura, colore ed aspetto esterno piuttosto che per il sapore o il legame con il territorio. Sono privilegiati i vegetati di grosse dimensioni, privi di difetti e ottenuti mediante un sistema di coltivazione intensivo ad elevato consumo di risorse ed impatto ambientale. Fortunatamente negli ultimi tempi c’è stata la riscoperta del cibo “sano”, in grado di prevenire le patologie, grazie ad una maggiore informazione e sensibilità del consumatore circa gli aspetti salutistici degli alimenti. Inoltre i consumatori sono attenti a ciò che mangiano, all’origine dei prodotti, alla tradizione, alla territorialità ed alla salvaguardia della biodiversità. Per questi motivi nell’attuale mercato agro-alimentare è aumenta l’esigenza sia di fornire prodotti con standard qualitativi e di sicurezza più elevati che in passato, sia di tutelare il consumatore e l’ambiente. Il tale contesto il presente libro esamina tre differenti colture: il nespolo, il lupino e la canapa, considerate per lo più marginali rispetto ad altre più redditizie come la pesca, la fragola, l’uva da tavola, il pomodoro, ecc. Tali “antiche” colture, grazie alla loro rusticità ed eccellenti caratteristiche nutrizionali, potrebbero contribuire allo sviluppo territoriale pugliese, alla tutela dell’ambiente mediterraneo, al miglioramento della salute del consumatore e all’incremento del reddito degli agricoltori. Quest’ultimo aspetto potrebbe rappresentare un valido strumento per ridurre lo spopolamento e l’abbandono delle attività agricole nelle zone marginali, fenomeno registrato negli ultimi decenni soprattutto nelle aree svantaggiate. Inoltre la riscoperta di tali specie permetterebbe di estendere i concetti di conservazione e valorizzazione delle specie vegetali di interesse agricolo, contribuendo alla riduzione dell’erosione genetica. Si ritiene, infine, che oltre alle azioni precedentemente suggerite la valorizzazione del nespolo, canapa e lupino debba essere sostenuta da investimenti diretti, alla conoscenza, all’innovazione tecnologica, al miglioramento genetico e alla ottimizzazione della gestione agronomica con il supporto e collaborazione tra gli Enti di promozione locali, l’Università e gli agricoltori.

A screening of Life Cycle Assessment for the evaluation of the damage arising from the production of 1 kg of recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate (RPET) fibre-based panel for building heat insulation was carried out according to the ISO 14040:2006 and 14044:2006. All data used were collected on site based on observations during site visits, review of documents and interviews with technical personnel and management. These data were processed by using SimaPro 7.3.3, accessing the Ecoinvent v.2.2 database and using the Impact 2002+ method. The study showed damage to be equal to 0.000299 points mostly due to the: 1) PET thermo-bonding fibre supply fromChina bymeans of a freight-equipped intercontinental aircraft; 2) production of bottle-grade granulate PET; 3) mediumvoltage electricity consumption during the manufacturing of RPET fibre panel. Itwas also highlighted that there were environmental benefits due to recycling through mainly avoiding significant emissions and reduced resource consumption. An improvement assessment was carried out to find solutions aimed at reducing the damage coming from the most impacting phases. Furthermore, the environmental impacts due to the production of the alysed RPET fibre-based panelwere compared to other materials with the same insulating function, such as polystyrene foam, rockwool and cork slab. Finally, the environmental benefits of the recycling of PET bottles for flake production were highlighted compared to other treatment scenarios such as landfill and municipal incineration.

The commercial interests for microalgae have increased over the last decades, especially for production of fuels. In this context, several technologies (i.e. open pond and/or photobioreactor) are increasingly being developed to improve microalgae biomass production. However, it should be underscored that, to date, energy (in particular biodiesel) production from these organisms is not economically convenient yet. Hence, to make biodiesel from microalgae feasible in the economic sense, optimised utilisation of all microalgae compounds is needed. Indeed, they are a promising source not only of bioenergy but also of commodities with high added value. The present review was focussed upon the utility of microalgae in the commercial and industrial sector to harness the growing demands of such marine resources. Finally, it seems that the cultivation of microalgae can be more profitable if the future research will be specifically focussed upon the integration of production systems (i.e. biorefinery), thereby making microalgae-based products even more diversified and economically competitive.