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Life cycle assessment tool for food supply chain environmental evaluation

  • Tamíris da Costa
    ,
  • James Gillespie
    ,
  • Katarzyna Pelc
    ,
  • Abi Adefisan
    ,
  • Michael Adefisan
    ,
  • Ram Ramanathan
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 2 - Zero Hunger
    SDG 2 Zero Hunger
  • SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
    SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
  • SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
    SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
    SDG 13 Climate Action

Abstract

Food is at the centre of efforts to combat climate change, reduce water stress, pollution, and conserve the world’s wildlife. Assessing the environmental performance of food companies is essential to provide a comprehensive view of the production processes and gain insight into improvement options, but such a tool is currently non-existent in the literature. This study proposed a tool based on the life cycle assessment methodology focused on six stages of the food chain, raw materials acquisition, supplier, manufacturing, distribution, retail and wastes. The user can also evaluate the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to reduce food waste applied in the real-world problems. The tool was validated through a case study of a food manufacturing company that prepares frozen meals via vending machines. The LCA results provided by the tool showed that food raw materials production is the main hotspot of nine impact categories. The IoT technologies’ contribution increased the company’s impact by around 0.4%. However, it is expected that employing these monitoring technologies would prevent food waste generation and the associated environmental impacts. Therefore, the results of this paper provide evidence that the proposed tool is suitable for determining environmental impacts and savings of food supply chain companies.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Article number

718

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 718

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Sustainability (Switzerland) (Volume 15, Issue 1)

Publication milestones

  • Accepted/In press - 28/12/2022
  • Published - 31/12/2022

Publication status

Published - 31/12/2022

ISSN

2071-1050

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/625636
  • Scopus: 85145991339

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