In quest of reducing the environmental impacts of food production and consumption

JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION

卷:140

Article

Sala, Serenella¹  Anton, Assumpcio²  McLaren, Sarah J.³  Notarnicola, Bruno⁴  Saouter, Erwan¹  Sonesson, Ulf⁵ 

[1] European Commiss, Joint Res Ctr, Directorate D, Bioecon Unit, Via Enrico Fermi 2749,TP 290, I-21027 Ispra, VA, Italy

[2] Inst Food & Agr Res & Technol IRTA, IRTA, Carretera Cabrils,Km 2, Barcelona 08348, Spain

[3] Massey Univ, New Zealand Life Cycle Management Ctr, Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand

[4] Univ Bari Aldo Moro, Ionian Dept Law Econ & Environm, Via Duomo 259, I-74123 Taranto, Italy

[5] SP Tech Res Inst Sweden, Food & Biosci, Box 5401, SE-40229 Gothenburg, Sweden

关键词: Food supply chain;    Life cycle assessment;    Food waste;    Global challenges;    Ecoinnovation;    Future scenarios;    Macro scale assessment;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.09.054

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Food supply chains are increasingly associated with environmental and socio-economic impacts. An increasing global population, an evolution in consumers' needs, and changes in consumption models pose serious challenges to the overall sustainability of food production and consumption. Life cycle thinking (LCT) and assessment (LCA) are key elements in identifying more sustainable solutions for global food challenges. In defining solutions to major global challenges, it is fundamentally important to avoid burden shifting amongst supply chain stages and amongst typologies of impacts, and LCA should, therefore, be regarded as a reference method for the assessment of agri-food supply chains. Hence, this special volume has been prepared to present the role of life cycle thinking and life cycle assessment in: i) the identification of hotspots of impacts along food supply chains with a focus on major global challenges; ii) food supply chain optimisation (e.g. productivity increase, food loss reduction, etc.) that delivers sustainable solutions; and iii) assessment of future scenarios arising from both technological improvements and behavioural changes, and under different environmental conditions (e.g. climate change). This special volume consists of a collection of papers from a conference organized within the last Universal Exposition (EXP02015) LCA for Feeding the planet and energy for life in Milan (Italy) in 2015 as well as other contributions that were submitted in the year after the conference that addressed the same key challenges presented at the conference. The papers in the special volume address some of the key challenges for optimizing food-related supply chains by using LCA as a reference method for environmental impact assessment. Beyond specific methodological improvements to better tailor LCA studies to food systems, there is a clear need for the LCA community to think outside the box, exploring complementarity with other methods and domains. The concepts and the case studies presented in this special volume demonstrate how cross-fertilization among difference science domains (such as environmental, technological, social and economic ones) may be key elements of a sustainable today and tomorrow for feeding the planet. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

【 授权许可】

Free