Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper provides a summary of what has been presented and discussed at the 8th international conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM 2017 conference, Luxembourg), during the session entitled “Improving the life cycle performance of chemical products and materials through data exchange along the value chain”. The purpose of the session was to demonstrate how to assess and manage the global sustainability of chemical products and materials, taking into account their whole life cycle, to achieve real improvements. Over the six oral presentations, the most challenging issues regarding availability and transparency of Life Cycle Inventory data from the chemicals industry were discussed. Some approaches developed in order to face these challenges were detailed, illustrated also with the presentation of some specific case-studies.

Fossil resource and greenhouse gas savings can be claimed when certified biomass is co-fed with fossil raw materials into a highly efficient interlinked production network. BASF and partners have developed a novel biomass balance certification standard for chemical synthesis. It offers a reliable response to customers and end consumers who are increasingly interested in solutions that are based on renewable feedstock without compromising resource efficiency and performance. The new standard describes how renewable feedstock is attributed to a given sales product. Existing products can thus be derived from biomass and provided with third-party certification. Highest technical product standards can be maintained while fostering the strategic goals of a bio-economy, often requested from different stakeholders.

Emerging economies play an increasingly important role in global food security. They often rely on fossil fuels, lag behind on food governance and are characterised by subtropical climates, often requiring energy intensive irrigation and refrigerated storage. Mitigation options for agri-food value chains in emerging economies are novel and have substantial sustainability potential. The session on Greening Agri-food Value Chains in Emerging Economies at the 8th International Conference on Life Cycle Management showed the manifold challenges of emerging economies on their transition path to contributing to a sustainable global food system. LCA can support this path by identifying specific environmental hotspots in food value chains as well as by evaluating and prioritising potential solutions from an environmental perspective.

Milk production in South Africa has increased substantially over the past ten years and is associated with various environmental impacts. These can be reduced by different means, four of which were analysed in this study: choice of breed, the use of methane emission reducing feed additives, solar power as well as variable frequency drive usage in fodder irrigation. The results showed that Holstein cows had a lower impact than Ayrshire cows per litre of milk, but that differences between farms were greater than between breeds alone. The feed additive 3-nitrooxypropanol (3NOP) led to an 18% reduction in the climate change impact category, and did not have negative effects in other categories. Using solar power for irrigation decreased the environmental impact by a larger degree than integrating a variable frequency drive to reduce the electricity demand of the water pump. All four are adequate means of reducing the environmental impact of milk.

The presentations addressed the topic of food waste management in a circular economy from various angles. Understanding the amount of food waste generated and setting measures to prevent it should be the starting point. Any not prevented food waste should be valorised aiming at a positive triple bottom line (social, economic and environmental). The huge environmental and economic potential of co-digestion of dairy manure and food wastes by linking waste producers with costumers for derived products was demonstrated for the US. Further the link between bio-waste, compost and soil quality is highlighted which contributes to food security and the wider bio-economy. Looking forward research into the application of selected agri-food wastes to produce alternative sources of protein could result in more sustainable source of proteins able to compete with industrial chicken production. Overall, the presentations and discussions showed the multi-facetted nature of food waste management emphasising that a range of measures by many stakeholders are required to move towards a circular economy society.

The increase of separate collections of bio-waste, largely represented by food waste, and their biological treatment is an essential feature of the waste management strategy. The aim of this paper was to highlight the role of compost in the circular economy, and its use in the agricultural sector. An annual time-step model for estimating soil organic matter (SOM) stock dynamics in a 22-year time frame was developed and tested on cardoon cropping system. The model took into account few soil parameters, mean annual temperature, and the cultural systems management, in particular organic fertilizers and crop residues. This work indicates that compost use in agriculture would be beneficial both for SOM increase and GHG reduction. The results showed how high-quality compost could represents the actual driving force of this change able to connect food, waste, economy and environment.

Substitution of food out of alternative biomass sources is aimed to supply consumers with food products similar in nutrition and with lower environmental impact compared to conventional products. At current state of development, meat substitutes are not competitive with chicken meat, except for plant based meat analogs (although they have weaker nutritional profile). Upscaling, further technological development and use of agri-food waste as main source substrate can assure the environmental benefits of insects (2 kW h of energy, 1 kg CO eq., 1.5 m of land and 0.1 m of water) and single cell products (10 kW h, 2–4 kg CO eq., 0.5 m of land and 0.25 m of water), making them more competitive compared to industrial chicken production. The results of the current research are preliminary and further studies are required to assure the industrial applicability of agri-food wastes use for food production.

This paper presents a summary of the session “Implementation and management of life cycle approaches in business—challenges, opportunities, business learnings and best practice”. In the session, the audience got the opportunity to listen to examples from industry and ways to include life cycle approaches in their business decision making processes. The audience also attended presentations where learnings from the environmental footprint process were discussed. The conclusions from the presentations and the final panel discussion can be summarized in some key messages. To succeed we need to go together and that is why harmonization of e.g. methods and regulations are important. As a basis when developing the way forward it was concluded that the life cycle approach is an important tool.

The paper presents a procedure and a methodology of research which aimed at assessing and comparing the effectiveness of different variants of labels in communicating life cycle based environmental information (EU ecolabel, draft PEF labels). Based on a survey, an electroencephalography (EEG) and an eye-tracking, the information regarding consumers’ ecological awareness, their neurological reaction and a visual attention is gathered and used for identifying the ecolabels’ elements with the highest communication potential. A potential target audience of the project is not limited to the specialists in the environmental labelling, but includes also the readers involved in green marketing, Product Environmental Footprint and Life Cycle Assessment practitioners.

LCM studies of industry and academia show the increasing importance of implementing life cycle thinking in the transport and mobility sector. Tools facilitating the use of LCA in product development processes increase the relevance of this topic in companies. OEMs use LCM as decision support for decarbonisation strategies and operationalization of greenhouse gas reduction targets. Next to environmental impacts, financial and social aspects are considered for a holistic assessment of vehicles. Regional impacts of alternative fuels and power trains need to be considered to support the development of sustainable mobility strategies in nation states. Regional specifics are also included in new data sets for modelling flat steel production along the value chain. Introducing voluntary credit transfer options in automotive legislation is proposed to incentivize low-carbon innovations throughout the whole life cycle of vehicles.