The “International Conference on Life Cycle Assessment in the Agri-Food Sector” (http://www.lcafood2010.uniba.it) that has taken place from September 22 to September 24, 2010 in Bari (Italy)—LCA Food 2010, in short—is the seventh in a series of events that include Brussels in 1996 and 1998, Göteborg in 2001 and 2007, Horsens in 2003, and Zurich in 2008. All the previous editions have been successful in terms of both participation and scientific quality of the presented papers, thus really contributing to build a reputation as a reference event for the Food LCA scientific community. More than 270 participants coming from the four continents have joined the event in Bari. Therefore, this edition has shown the highest degree of participation registered so far within the LCA Food conference series (Figs. 1 and 2). In organising this edition, the aim has been to keep the usual high scientific quality of the conference, while providing an occasion to involve the relevant stakeholders, including some key players from the agriculture, industry, and distribution sectors; the institutional bodies; and the households. This purpose has been achieved to the extent the event has received positive feedbacks from important economic actors, at both national and international level, that gave their support to the event as sponsor, as well as from the institutions that gave their patronage.

In this study a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) was applied to find the best combination of mixing energy, economic and environmental indices concerning oilseed canola production. Data were collected from oilseed farming enterprises in Mazandaran province of Iran. Life cycle assessment of canola production from cradle to farm gate was investigated to calculate the environmental emissions. Econometric modelling was applied to find the relationship functions between energy inputs and three individual output parameters including environmental emissions, output energy and economic productivity. A multi-objective model was formulated in order to maximise the output energy and benefit to cost ratio, and minimise the final score of environmental emissions in order to obtain a set of Pareto frontier. When applying CML-IA methodology, multi-objective optimization resulted in a 32.1% reduction of the total environmental emissions as well as simultaneous increase of output energy and benefit cost ratio by 24.1% and 14.2%, respectively. More specifically, the reduction of chemicals by 82.2%, nitrogen by 11.1% and other chemical fertilisers by 70.7% would be beneficial from environment, energy and economic viewpoints. This work highlights the usefulness of the implementation of MOGA in agricultural production systems to find an optimized combination of mixing energy, economic and environment

The economic counterpart of LCA, known as Environmental Life Cycle Costing (LCC), is of increasing concern for LCA practitioners. Just lìke LCA, LCC may concern food products. Yet, the literature provides few applications of LCC to food products and, more generally, to nondurable products; moreover, the methodologies adopted vary significantly within the available studies. Other examples of combined environmental-economic tools for the assessment of food products include applications of Input-Output Analysis along with Material Flows Analysis (MFA) and LCA. These combinations aim at studying the way materials and substances flow through the economy and applications in these fields are well established ones. The main results achieved by such diverse combinations of tools are discussed here, especially those which are of managerial relevance. An effort will also be made to highlight the peculiarities that may be taken into account in future applications, when carrying out economic analysis concerning food products, combined with environmental analysis.

Industrial ecology is the study of “technical bodies”, the use of their resources, their potential impact on the environment and the ways in which their interactions with the natural world can be restructured to achieve greater sustainability. It is a systemic approach that seeks to optimize the total materials cycle, from raw materials to finished goods, to those used up to their final disposal. Till now various application levels of industrial ecology concepts have been identified which represent a gradually more and more complex process of eco-industrial integration: the exchange of matter and energy can take place into a single company (divided in most production units) or a group, in eco-industrial parks with cooperative or integrated management, or even at regional level through the implementation of complex eco-industrial systems and networks for the operation of which the continuous exchange of information between companies becomes crucial. However, while new projects are always arising in industrial ecology for individual companies, industries or districts, on the other hand, examples of application of industrial ecology to large areas are very limited. The aim of this paper is to present the preliminary results of a model application of the principles and tools of industrial ecology to a wide area to identify possible interactions between the achievable existing productive sectors in the same area and in particular the identification of areas potentially missing and to be implemented to optimize the exchange of matter and energy. The model is then applied to the specific case of the Province of Taranto to test the quality of the needed information. In this case a provincial assessment of the energy use has been established. The energy balance shows that the waste energy deriving from the most energy intensive firms amounts to over 1050 ktep. Such quantity is larger than the energy absorbed by the residential sector of the province. Moreover, for some of the larger amounts of special waste produced in the province, some forms of implementable Industrial Symbiosis (IS) have been proposed. In particular the research was concentrated on the blast furnace and steel slag since the steelmaking factory ILVA produces more than 1,5 Mt of steel slag (currently used to fill quarries) and 1,5Mt of blast furnace slag.

L’Ecologia industriale costituisce un nuovo paradigma di sviluppo sostenibile e ha come oggetto lo studio dei sistemi produttivi (anche nelle dimensioni sociale e culturale) e delle loro reciproche relazioni. Utilizza i metodi dell’ecologia per lo studio dei flussi materiali ed energetici nei sistemi industriali, al fine di progettare degli scenari, come in natura, caratterizzati da un riutilizzo massimo di tutti i cascami materiali ed energetici da un settore produttivo ad un altro. In letteratura ci sono vari esempi di eco-parchi e/o distretti industriali che si sono sviluppati negli anni attraverso una forte cooperazione in termini di scambio di know-how, informazioni, flussi di residui materiali ed energetici tra le aziende e i settori industriali presenti; tuttavia tali esempi sono relativi a superfici spaziali relativamente ridotte. Il presente volume, che illustra i risultati del progetto di ricerca finanziato dalla Fondazione Caripuglia e frutto della collaborazione dei merceologi e dei tributaristi afferenti al Dipartimento Jonico, si occupa dell’applicazione dei principi e dei metodi dell’ecologia industriale e della simbiosi industriale ad un’area come quella di Taranto fortemente interessata da problematiche ambientali legate alla presenza di attività industriali, al fine di delineare su questo territorio dei percorsi innovativi di sviluppo sostenibile sia in termini ambientali che economico-sociali. Il testo riporta, oltre ad una mappatura economica e ambientale del territorio jonico, possibili scenari simbiotici inerenti i rifiuti e l’energia insieme ad un completo inquadramento normativo sull’impiego della leva fiscale a sostegno dello sviluppo sostenibile e sulle misure di fiscalità ambientale che favoriscono lo sviluppo territoriale.

The project described encompasses a life cycle evaluation, in terms of energy flows and greenhouse gas emissions related to 21 types of EU bread. The work involved building a common framework with respect to the assumptions and models to be used for the single product assessments in order to achieve consistent LCAs and to obtain comparable results. The system was divided into seven parts: agriculture/breeding, storage, wheat/rye milling, ingredients production, logistics, packaging, bread production. The results show that in both the indicators the breads which have simple recipes, characterised by the presence of flour, water and yeast have the best energy and global warming results. On the contrary, the breads which have more complex recipes, characterised by the presence of animal-based products have the worst results. In all the cases, the energy consumption due to the baking process represents a hot spot.

In the frame of its activities in supporting the EXPO 2015 and on the behalf of DG ENER, JRC has recently published a report [1] aimed at discussing the current state of play for food-related energy consumption and opportunities for improvement in the European Union. Detailed estimates for energy consumed in each production step for a basket of most representative food products were computed based on a LCA approach. These estimates have served as bases for discussing challenges and opportunities for making the EU food consumption "energy-smarter", both in terms of decreasing the overall energy consumed and increasing the share of renewable energy employed in the whole food chain

The food sector is a major consumer of energy: the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables accounts for 17 % of the EU’s gross energy consumption in 2013, equivalent to about 26 % of the EU’s final energy consumption in the same year. Agriculture, including crop cultivation and animal rearing, is the most energy intense phase of the food system—accounting for nearly one third of the total energy consumed in the food production chain. The second most important phase of the food life cycle is industrial processing, which accounts for 28% of total energy use. Together with logistics and packaging, these three phases of the food life cycle "beyond the farm gate" are responsible for nearly half of the total energy use in the food system. While the "end of life" phase including final disposal of food waste represents only slightly more than 5% of total energy use in the EU food system, food waste actually occurs at every step of the food chain. Given the large amounts of energy involved in food production, reducing food waste is an important vector for improving the overall energy efficiency of the food system. Different food products need very different amounts of energy per unit of mass depending on their nature, their origin and the kind of processing they have been subjected to. Refined products and products of animal origin generally need an amount of energy several times larger than vegetables, fruits and cereal products. While the EU has made important progress in incorporating renewable energy across the economy, the share of renewables in the food system remains relatively small. Renewables accounted for just 7% of the energy used in food production and consumption in 2013 compared to 15% in the overall energy mix. Renewables more limited penetration is largely a reflection of the high reliance of the food sector of fossil fuels. Overall, fossil fuels account for almost 79% of the energy consumed by the food sector compared to 72% of overall energy consumption. The relatively low share of renewables in the food sector is also linked to the fact that about one fifth of food consumed in the EU is imported from regions outside the EU where the renewable share is generally lower than 15%. Building on these results, the report discusses the way ahead and highlights the main challenges to be faced in decreasing the energy use and in increasing the renewable energy share in the food sector. Sectoral literature reviews present solutions offered by science and technology and industrial case studies and EU-funded research projects show their practical application. Although energy efficiency in agriculture production is steadily improving with direct energy consumption per hectare declining by about 1% every year in the last two decades, addressing the challenge of decoupling agriculture productivity from energy consumption and GHG emissions will require an array of responses across the food system. Energy, especially in the form of indirect energy used for fertilisers and pesticides or irrigation, remains a crucial input for cultivation success but huge improvements are possible. More efficient fertiliser production technology and avoiding unnecessary fertiliser applications through properly designed cultivation practices are expected to complement each other and play a major role in decreasing indirect energy inputs to agriculture. In this sense, considerable experience and data exist for organic farming, no-tillage and integrated farming especially designed to minimise energy and material inputs. European farmers are already leading the way in this transition, for example, through efforts to increase the use of renewable energy in agricultural production. Thanks to investments in farm-based renewable technologies like biogas, farmers have the potential to not only become energy self-sufficient, but al

Bread represents a staple food in many parts of the world including Europe. Depending on the region of origin and the respective cultural heritage bread is made with different ingredients and is consumed in various forms. This work consists of an environmental sustainability assessment of 21 different types of bread, representing a wide spectrum of typologies of such food consumed across the European Union, via a Life Cycle Assessment approach. The embedded energy and equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of each type of bread were estimated, from cradle to bakery gate, by considering a mass, a nutritional value and a price based functional unit. Overall, the results have highlighted the variability of the embedded energy and the equivalent GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions associated to the consumption of the 21 kinds of bread rooted in the cultural environment of 21 EU countries. When considering a functional unit of 1 kg of bread, the Cumulative Energy Demand results range from 9 MJ/kg to 32.9 MJ/kg. The Global Warming Potential indicator has a minimum value of 0.5 kgCO2eq/kg and a maximum of 6.6 kgCO2eq/kg. For a functional unit amounting to a 100 kcal provided by the consumption of bread, the Cumulative Energy Demand results vary from 0.33 MJ/100 kcal to 0.93 MJ/100 kcal whilst the Global Warming Potential indicator varies from 0.019 kgCO2eq/100 kcal to 0.135 kgCO2eq/100 kcal. For a functional unit amounting to the quantity of bread purchased with 1V (weighted according to the purchasing price of each nation in the European Union), the Cumulative Energy Demand results vary from 1.197 MJ/V to 3.708 MJ/V whilst the Global Warming Potential indicator varies from 0.15 kgCO2eq/V to 0.376 kgCO2eq/ V. The study has pinpointed the importance of evaluating food, in terms of environmental sustainability, with more than one type of functional unit in order to account not only for the bread's nutritional purposes but also the need to satisfy social, cultural, hedonistic and other qualitative functions. Specifically, when using a mass based functional unit, the less impactful results involve bread types with simple recipes, based essentially on flour, yeast and water. By assessing the breads with an energy based functional unit, bread types which also contain vegetable oils and small amounts of animal based ingredients result as more carbon and energy friendly. The use of a price based functional unit indicates that the higher priced bread types, manufactured with more expensive ingredients that are produced in an environmentally efficient manner, are the more sustainable ones. Overall, for many types of bread, the energy consumption during the production phase, in particular the baking process, represents a hot spot and is dependent on the size and shape of the bread. Furthermore, the efficiency of ingredient production (in terms of material and energy use and in terms of the respective yields of each nation in the European Union), such as that of milk and flour, also influences the sustainability of the bread types

Irregularities in grape yields can often affect wine production both quantitatively and qualitatively. Hence concentration systems, such as those based on reverse osmosis, are often employed to overcome such problems. The present study illustrates the results of a life cycle assessment approach implemented as means to improve the existing performance and sustainability of a specific industrial reverse osmosis concentration system used in a southern Italian winery to concentrate a specific must. The application of lifecycle approaches to reverse osmosis must concentration is sparsely documented in scientific literature with little or no specific data. The life cycle assessment of this study, developed using large amounts of inventory data and other novel information gathered from industrial testing, has highlighted the use phase as the most impacting one due to the energy consumption during the concentration operations and due to the membrane cleaning operations. In view of these results, the machine setup was improved and tested by varying the feed-flow velocity and the resulting new setup re-assessed via a life cycle approach. The final results exhibit the relationship between permeate production and feed flow velocity that does not appear to have been sufficiently investigated in other work found in literature regarding wine must. Specifically, the curve fitted to the experimental readings indicates that the maximum performance of the reverse osmosis system under analysis is achieved with a feed-flow velocity of approximately 2 m/s. Furthermore the new optimised setup of the machine lowered the environmental profile of all impact categories within a range from a minimum of 25.3% to a maximum of 26.7%, due to lower energy consumption, higher permeate production and reduced cleaning operations for the membranes. Concurrently to the environmental optimisation a technical improvement was identified, namely the substitution of the over-dimensioned piston pump, together with a potential reduction of purchase, running and labour costs of the optimised reverse osmosis system. Overall the study highlights the utility of analysing industrial machinery, such as reverse osmosis must concentration systems, from a life cycle analysis perspective, that can bring about not only environmental sustainability improvements but also technical and economic developments.

Food consumption is amongst the main drivers of environmental impacts. On one hand, there is the need to fulfil a fundamental human need for nutrition, and on the other hand this poses critical threats to the environment. In order to assess the environmental impact of food consumption, a lifecycle assessment (LCA)-based approach has been applied to a basket of products, selected as being representative of EU consumption. A basket of food products was identified as representative of the average food and beverage consumption in Europe, reflecting the relative importance of the products in terms of mass and economic value. The products in the basket are: pork, beef, poultry, milk, cheese, butter, bread, sugar, sunflower oil, olive oil, potatoes, oranges, apples, mineral water, roasted coffee, beer and pre-prepared meals. For each product in the basket, a highly disaggregated inventory model was developed based on a modular approach, and built using statistical data. The environmental impact of the average food consumption of European citizens was assessed using the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) methodology. The overall results indicate that, for most of the impact categories, the consumed foods with the highest environmental burden are meat products (beef, pork and poultry) and dairy products (cheese, milk and butter). The agricultural phase is the lifecycle stage that has the highest impact of all the foods in the basket, due to the contribution of agronomic and zootechnical activities. Food processing and logistics are the next most important phases in terms of environmental impacts, due to their energy intensity and the related emissions to the atmosphere that occur through the production of heat, steam and electricity and during transport. Regarding the end-of-life phase, human excretion and wastewater treatments pose environmental burdens related to eutrophying substances whose environmental impacts are greater than those of the agriculture, transports and processing phases. Moreover, food losses which occur throughout the whole lifecycle, in terms of agricultural/industrial and domestic food waste, have also to be taken into consideration, since they can amount to up to 60% of the initial weight of the food products. The results of the study go beyond the mere assessment of the potential impacts associated with food consumption, as the overall approach may serve as a baseline for testing eco-innovation scenarios for impact reduction as well as for setting targets.

The work described encompasses an evaluation, in terms of environmental impact, of food consumption in the EU. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the structure of the EU food consumption was carried out to select a basket of products representative for the structure of 2010 EU-27 food consumption. An LCA of the basket was performed to evaluate the environmental impact of such consumption. The results indicate that in the majority of the environmental impact categories the most burdening foods are meat and dairy. Fruit contributes the least to the overall result because its relatively low impact is coupled with light packaging and lack of home processing or cooking. The agricultural phase is the most burdensome for most impact categories. The end-of- life phase and the losses occuring in all lifecycle phases need to be carefully considered since they can significantly contribute to the overall burden of food consumption.

The objective of this study is that of getting an insight into the environmental burden of wheat production and consumption at national level in the EU by taking into account national wheat imports and fertiliser and pesticide use. In order to accomplish such an environmental study a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach is implemented. The method used for this work involves: the statistical analysis of EU wheat production and consumption; the inventory analysis of EU wheat production; and the environmental analysis of wheat consumption of each EU country via LCA. The results highlight differences in the environmental impact of wheat consumption among the EU member nations deriving from the different use of fertilisers and pesticides, climatic conditions, production yields and quantities and origin of the imports needed to cover such national wheat consumptions.

The Italian olive-growing sector has to face both the growing competition on the international olive oil mar-ket and the shift of the common agricultural policy (CAP) from market and price policies towards direct aids decoupled from production. In addition the olive growers, as other farmers, have to comply with stricter obligations to manage their farms in sustainable ways (cross compliance). In this scenario the sector needs new competitive strategies to address these new challenges. In this paper we assess if innovative olive-growing models, like the high trees density orchards, are able to reduce production costs without worsening environmental sustainability. Indeed the intensive olive systems produce higher yields within a few years of planting and allow a higher level of mechanization (pruning and harvesting) but they could generate higher environmental impacts. In this study we perform an economic and environmental comparison between two olive growing systems: the "high density" and the “super high density”. The analysis integrates the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methods by using a common database.

The Italian olive-growing sector has to face both the growing competition on the international olive oil market and the shift of the common agricultural policy (CAP) from market and price policies towards direct aids decoupled from production. In addition the olive growers, as other farmers, have to comply with stricter obligations to manage their farms in sustainable ways (cross compliance). In this scenario the sector needs new competitive strategies to address these new challenges. In this paper we assess if innovative olive-growing models, like the high trees density orchards, are able to reduce production costs without worsening environmental sustainability. Indeed the intensive olive systems produce higher yields within a few years of planting and allow a higher level of mechanization (pruning and harvesting) but they could generate higher environmental impacts. In this study we perform an environmental and economic assessment of two olive-growing systems: the “High Density” (HDO) and the “Super High Density” (SHDO). The analysis integrates the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methods by using a common database. The environmental analysis carried out through LCA has shown a better performance of the HDO system for all the impact categories, due to a lower use of energy and chemical inputs and to higher olive yields. Also from an economic point of view the HDO could be considered more convenient than the SHDO: in fact, despite the lower operating costs of the latter due to the complete mechanization of pruning and harvesting operations, these costs are counterbalanced by higher initial investment costs that the company has to face which are three times those of the HDO system. The total result is that the Net Present Value is better for the HDO for each olive price level. This result is mainly driven by lower plantation costs, longer production cycle, higher production of olives and higher efficiency in the use of inputs which characterize the HDO model.

L’obiettivo del presente studio è di valutare il profilo ambientale della produzione della colza coltivata in Iran, attraverso la LCA, con particolare riferimento ai possibili diversi modi di gestione della paglia residuale. I dati primari sono stati raccolti da 150 aziende agricole operanti nella provincia di Mazandaran, il centro principale della produzione di colza in Iran. Il sistema analizzato considera la produzione della colza dalla “culla al cancello” dell’azienda produttrice e utilizza come unità funzionale la produzione di una tonnellata di colza. I risultati indicano che il GWP ammonta a 1181.6 kg CO2eq/t e che gli indicatori inerenti alla acidificazione e eutrofizzazione ammontano a 23.3 kg SO2eq/t e 18 kg PO4 3- eq/t rispettivamente. Le emissioni dovute alla produzione e applicazione dei fertilizzanti e del diesel (utilizzato per le macchine agricole) contribuiscono in maniera significativa all’impatto ambientale del sistema analizzato. I risultati indicano anche che l’impatto ambientale è anche fortemente influenzato dal sistema utilizzato per la gestione della paglia residuale. Nello specifico, la rimozione della paglia dal campo risulta essere la pratica più sostenibile, mentre la combustione sul campo di tali residui comporta i maggiori impatti ambientali. Per il miglioramento del profilo ambientale del sistema analizzato è auspicabile una riduzione dell’utilizzo di fertilizzanti chimici a base di azoto, l‘utilizzo di sistemi di coltivazione a rotazione, come ad esempio quello fagiolo-colza, e la dismissione della pratica inerente alla combustione sul campo la paglia residuale.

Lifecycle assessment, together with lifecycle thinking and lifecycle management, are systems approaches for addressing the environmental consequences of an entire product chain, from resource extraction to waste man-agement. Lifecycle assessments are used in business and policy making to promote sustainable consumption and production. They offer alternatives to point-source strate¬gies, which only reduce pollution at its source.

Modern food production is very diverse with high levels of specialisation and complexity. These features inevitably reflect on methods in the application of LCA to food products and agro-systems. System boundaries, functional units, allocation procedures and several other aspects contribute to there being substantial differentiation in the structure of LCA applications in fruit production systems, leading to significantly different results. Indeed, although scientific literature on the topic is recent and not particularly extensive, there are already many different ways of conducting LCAs in orchards. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework for selecting the best parameters for an LCA application in fruit production systems according to the objective of the study. This has been achieved by reviewing the scientific and technical literature on the topic. In particular papers from international journals and conference proceedings have been considered and the review has covered all main aspects for conducting an LCA in fruit production systems. The particular characteristics considered were objectives, system boundaries, the product considered, the functional unit, data origin and the environmental impact assessment method used. A substantial part of the paper is devoted to the modelling of the orchard, as this is key to a reliable application of any impact assessment approach. Rather than merely describing the theoretical model, this paper presents concrete recommendations about how to build the orchard system for LCA application avoiding over or under-estimations of the different orchard stages.

L’arricchimento dei mosti costituisce una delle più diffuse pratiche enologiche, finalizzata al raggiungimento di un ottimale grado zuccherino nei mosti elevando, entro i limiti della legislazione Comunitaria, il contenuto di zuccheri riduttori e conseguentemente il grado alcolico del vino prodotto. Attualmente il processo enologico di concentrazione più diffuso è quello ad alta temperatura che però risulta energeticamente dispendioso e suscettibile di incidere negativamente sulle caratteristiche organolettiche del prodotto. Recentemente si stanno affacciando sul mercato altri metodi di concentrazione quali la concentrazione a bassa temperatura o l’osmosi inversa. I sistemi di concentrazione ad osmosi inversa, tuttavia, rimangono poco studiati nelle applicazioni enologiche, in particolare per quanto riguarda le membrane semipermeabili da impiegare e i vari aspetti energetici ed ambientali degli impianti, in funzione anche delle variabili di processo. Il presente volume illustra i risultati del progetto di ricerca finanziato dalla Regione Puglia ed è frutto della collaborazione dei merceologi afferenti al Dipartimento Jonico dell’Università degli Studi di Bari, che hanno condotto negli ultimi venti anni numerose ricerche sulla compatibilità ambientale di prodotti e processi appartenenti a svariati settori merceologici, e l’azienda Itest Srl di Corato (Ba), produttrice di impianti per i settori enologico, oleario, pastario e caseario. Obiettivo generale della ricerca è stato quello di acquisire le conoscenze necessarie a stabilire le caratteristiche ambientali che gli impianti di osmosi inversa per l’arricchimento dei mosti devono possedere, ai fini di un’ottimizzazione della realizzazione degli stessi. Il testo riporta, oltre ad una panoramica sullo strumento del Life Cycle Assessment e sulla sua recente evoluzione, un approfondimento sul processo di concentrazione dei mosti con le varie tecniche esistenti. Vengono successivamente illustrati i risultati della ricerca seguendo l’articolazione proposta dalla norma ISO 14040 sull’Analisi del Ciclo di Vita del prodotto.

The purpose of this work is that of carrying out an accurate and extensive environmental analysis of the steel production in the Taranto district, in order to highlight its main hot spots. The development for such an analysisis based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of steel production. The analysis has the specific objective of identifying the use of material and energy together with the quantities and qualities of the emissions during all the lifecycle phases. The LCA has a cradle to LD-converter gate approach that covers the stages from raw material extraction to solid steel production. The results give an indication of the most burdening phases of the steelmaking process, in terms of impact categories and energy consumption, and at the same time they represent an information basin that can be used for the identification of possible improvements needed to progress the sustainability of the steelworks and its surrounding productive district

Iranian sugar is one of the most important commodities of the national agro based industries. However Iranian sugar mills are old and technologically outdated and are therefore responsible for a large share of the environmental burden of food production. Sugar mills use various inputs during processing which include chemicals, limestone, electricity, water, natural gas and are also responsible for a series of the burdening emissions. The present study stems from a project whose aim is that of optimising Iranian sugar production. Specifically for the work described here, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied to the Hamadan sugar mill. For cultivation phase data from 88 sugar beet farms were collected. This information was then used, together with the inventory data from the sugar mill, to calculate the environmental impact of sugar production in terms of impact categories. The preliminary LCA results indicate that the role of electricity and natural gas are high in impact categories due to agricultural and industrial phases, respectively.

The purpose of this work is to carry out an accurate and extensive environmental analysis of the steel production occurring in in the largest integrated EU steel mill, located in the city of Taranto in southern Italy. The end goal is that of highlighting the steelworks’ main hot spots and identifying potential options for environmental improvement. The development for such an analysis is based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of steel production with a cradle to casting plant gate approach that covers the stages from raw material extraction to solid steel slab production. The inventory results have highlighted the large solid waste production, especially in terms of slag, which could be reused in other industries as secondary raw materials. Other reuses, in accordance with the circular economy paradigm, could encompass the energy waste involved in the steelmaking process. The most burdening lifecycle phases are the ones linked to blast furnace and coke oven operations. Specifically, the impact categories are influenced by the energy consumption and also by the toxicity of the emissions associated with the lifecycle of steel production. A detailed analysis of the toxicity impacts indicates that LCA is still not perfectly suitable for toxicity assessments and should be coupled with other more site specific studies in order to understand such aspects fully. Overall, the results represent a first step to understanding the current levels of sustainability of the steelworks, which should be used as a starting point for the development both of pollution control measures and of symbiotic waste reutilization scenarios needed to maintain the competitiveness of the industrial plant.

The objectives of this study are to assess the environmental impacts of oilseed canola production using cradle-to-farm-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) and to find some solutions to reduce environmental impacts of crop production. Data were taken from 150 canola farms from Mazandaran province, the main center of canola production in Iran. The functional unit was considered as one ton of canola grain. The LCA results indicated that global warming potential was 1181.6 kg CO2eq per ton of produced canola. Also, acidification and eutrophication per ton of canola grain were found to be 23.3 kg SO2 eq and 18.0 kg PO4 3- eq, respectively. Emissions due to production and application of chemical fertilizers especially urea had a pivotal effect on environmental burdens. It is concluded that, reducing the consumption of chemical fertilizers, especially N fertilizer, is important for decreasing the environmental footprints in the area.

The food and drink sector accounts for about twenty to thirty percent of the overall environmental impact deriving from private consumption. The recent increase in attention by researchers to food life cycle assessment (LCA) is also due to the fact that methodological issues are different from the typical ones arising from industrial product LCAs: definition of the functional unit, difficulties in data collection in the agricultural and zootechnical phases and relative deficiencies in databases, pesticides and their exposure, fertilizer dispersion models, and impact categories of land use and water use constitute some of the main topics on which further research efforts are needed. Through case studies, this chapter highlights typical methodological issues of food LCA and how they have been treated and managed. It emphasizes the strong need for a harmonized framework for food LCA, and for data for the agri-food chains, in both agricultural and industrial applications. Similarly, spatial data and models are needed to take into account the different pedoclimatic conditions, as well as data for emissions to the atmosphere, water, and soil from industrial food plants.

Industrial Symbiosis represents one of the approaches of the Industrial Ecology paradigm implemented as a means of making industrial production more sustainable. Currently in Italy there are only a few initiatives entailing Industrial Symbiosis and they have not yet developed fully. This chapter represents a study of the industrial sector of the Taranto province located in south east Italy, whose aim is that of identifying current and some new potential Industrial Symbiosis interactions among the firms of the sector. The economic, environmental, waste and energy analysis of the provincial industrial sector, has depicted the current state of Industrial Symbiosis and has also identified who the key players of a future Industrial Symbiosis scenario in the province could be. The waste reutilisation and energy management schemes identified and described in this work, regarding the yearly generation of 3,25 Mtons of solid waste and by products and over 1000 ktoe of waste heat, could be used as a starting point for a real implementation of Industrial Symbiosis interactions that will effectively be able to make the Taranto province industrial system more competitive and environmentally sustainable

The human health and environmental issues related to food, feed, and bio-based systems, range widely from greenhouse gas emissions and energy use to land use, water availability, soil quality, water quality and quantity, biodiversity losses, and chemical exposure. Threats that stem from other issues, including food quality and food security, the development of genetically modified organisms (GMO's), desertification, pesticide exposure, antibiotic-resistant strains of microorganisms, growth hormone residues in food, etc., are also of concern. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology provides the organizing framework to holistically evaluate the environmental impacts of products and production systems, whether it’s to make a durable, disposable or edible good. The use of LCA in environmental management and sustainability has grown rapidly in recent years as demonstrated by the increasing number of published papers on LCA methodology and case studies, which totaled over 4,500 by 2010. Recognizing the need to focus on the impacts of the agri-food industry, this special issue was developed by selecting 16 papers from the 85 presented at the Bari LCA Food 2010 conference, and publishing them with eight papers submitted as part of the normal flow to the Journal of Cleaner Production on food related subjects. The papers in this special issue include case studies from LCAs on relevant dimensions of production of a wide array of types of food, discussions on methodological issues, especially water and land use, the application of product certification schemes, and food preservation. The editors of this special issue acknowledge that progress has been made in strengthening the LCA tools but challenge all LCA practitioners and researchers to push the envelope on LCA methodology and encourage them to develop tools that dynamically address the diverse, rapidly evolving issues related to agricultural products that are not currently addressed. It is hoped that the challenges that are outlined in this Special Issue will stimulate many to make progress on improving the food LCA tools prior to the next food LCA conference in this series, which will be held in Saint-Malo, France on 2-4 October 2012. For more information, visit: https://colloque.inra.fr/lcafood2012.

In this study the environmental profile of Iranian rapeseed cultivation was analysed with a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, in order to identify the hot spots of the system. Also, in order to apply environmental indicators for agricultural decision making purposes, the environmental burden of different residue management practices were compared. Primary data were collected from 150 rapeseed farms from the Iranian Mazandaran province. The system considers a cradle-to-farm gate boundary, and the functional unit was regarded as being one Mg of rapeseed production. The LCA results indicate that the global warming potential amounts to 1181.6 kg CO2eq Mg−1. Also, the acidification and eutrophication potentials were found to be 23.3 kg SO2eq Mg−1 and 18 kg PO4 3 eq Mg−1, respectively. The results also reveal that environmental emissions of crop production were significantly affected by residue management practices. Specifically, rapeseed residue removal from the field is the most environmentally-friendly practice. This is followed by a scenario involving residue incorporation in the soil. The practice of burning such residue entails the highest environmental emissions. In conclusion, reducing the consumption of chemical fertilisers, especially nitrogen based ones, is important for decreasing the environmental footprints in the area. Furthermore, avoiding crop residue burning and developing rapeseedbean rotation are favourable management strategies for establishing more environmentally-friendly rapeseed production systems in the region.

obiettivo del presente contributo ai lavori del workshop ”Valutazione economica degli effetti sanitari dell’inquinamento atmosferico: la metodologia dell’eea” è quello di descrivere la metodologia impact pathway analysis (ipa), che è considerata dalla commissione europea come la più idonea per effettuare valutazioni economiche delle esternalità legate all’inquinamento di siti produttivi, e confrontarla con la metodologia sviluppata dall’european environmental agency (eaa) nel rapportorevealing the costs of air pollution from industrial facilities in europe (eaa, 2011). sin dal 1990 la commissione europea con un team di oltre 200 scienziati dei diversi paesi membri e con un investimento di oltre 15 m€ ha lanciato il progetto ExternE il quale, attraverso lo sviluppo della metodologia di ipa si pone l’obiettivo di valutare in modo site specific il danno ambientale e monetario derivante dal funzionamento di centrali termoelettriche alimentate con combustibili fossili, con fonti rinnovabili e con combustibile nucleare (externe, 1995). il contributo si articola su tre parti: l’introduzione, in cui verrà descritto l’inquinamento in termini di esternalità, e sarà evidenziata l’utilità della quantificazione dei costi esterni con le metodologie ipa di tipo site-specific e le differenze con il Life Cycle Inventory (lci) di tipo site-indipendent; nella seconda parte verrà maggiormente dettagliato l’approccio dell’IPA nel progetto ExternE; il contributo termina con una breve descrizione del rapporto dell’eea, Revealing the costs of air pollution from industrial facilities in Europe, operando una comparazione tra l’ipa e i risultati del predetto rapporto dell’eaa, , ottenuti con una metodologia di impact pathway approach.