Transcript Diapositiva 1

Review of simplified LCA approaches and tools:
defining a streamlined tool for food LCAs
addressed to SMEs
Ioannis ARZOUMANIDIS, Andrea RAGGI, Luigia PETTI, Alessandra ZAMAGNI
Department of Economic Studies - Section for Technology and the Environment
University “G. d’Annunzio”, Pescara, Italy
[email protected]
1
Introduction & Objectives
• Research context: EMAF project, aiming at:
• defining, testing and disseminating innovative
environmental management tools such as “POEMS” and
their components (Integrated Management Systems,
streamlined LCA and EPD) to help improve the
sustainability and competitiveness of agro-food
companies.
• In this framework, our team was involved in proposing and
testing a simplified LCA tool for food
• 2 starting subtasks:
a) Critical review of existing LCA studies and review papers
on food supply chains
b) Critical review of papers dealing with the issue of
simplification in LCA
Here, the preliminary
results of subtask “b”
are presented
(the project is still
ongoing)
General simplified approaches/tools found in the literature:
i) The “Bilan Produit” worktool, designed by ADEME (France) to offer industrial
stakeholders and researchers an eco-design software utility. Information gathered for
the LCIA is based on the ICPE environmental classification;
ii) A semi-quantitative LCA for LCIA, as part of an Iterative Screening LCA. The
adopted approach is aimed at lowering the quality requirements for non-energy
related emission data through combined use of qualitative and quantitative LCI data;
iii) Materials, Energy, Chemicals and Others (MECO) method. For this method no
production-specific data were required (a semi-quantitative method);
iv) Environmentally Responsible Product Assessment (ERPA) matrix method. In
this method a 5x5 matrix is proposed, where on one axis are the environmental
categories and on the other the life-cycle stages;
v) Component Manufacturing Analysis (CMA), which is an LCI method for the
manufacturing stage. Here, a product is regarded as an integration of intermediate
manufacturing outputs;
vi) A fuzzy logic approach for the LCIA, where an inference model is run to
transform the gathered -through questionnaires- information into environmental
impacts according to a set of rules reflecting the knowledge of a panel of
environmental experts;
vii) Indicator approaches (environmental indicators, environmental impact indicators
and environmental estimators);
viii) Various types of streamlining LCA, which appear to have more qualitative
approaches.
Food-specific simplified approaches/tools:
2
Materials & Methods
A total number of 38 papers were reviewed:
• 6 directly related to food
• 3 somehow related to the food sector (e.g.
packaging)
• the rest focused on a variety of
products/sectors.
http://ww2.unime.it/emaf
Tools focusing on a single environmental
impact category (such as global warming –
e.g., Carbon Footprint) were NOT reviewed.
4
3
Results & Discussion
Need for simplification
(a need highlighted also in the EU Green
Paper on Integrated Product Policy)
Most papers reviewed identify that the need
to simplify is linked to:
• time and cost (esp. for SMEs) needed to of
carry out a full LCA.
• dealing with difficulties met in full LCAs
(data
gaps
and
asymmetries,
and
inconsistencies in LCI)
• obtaining a more pro-active attitude in the
design phase.
a) a simplified LCA where a production system can be regarded
as a “black box”. In this case, for instance, instead of measuring
energy consumption for each process and then sum them up, the
whole farm or factory can be considered and the entire energy
consumption can be allocated to the main product;
b) a method for generating a simplified LCI for agricultural
produce where, besides collecting data through questionnaires,
minimum estimations were introduced in the inventory mass
balance considering basically the elementary composition of the
agricultural produce and the photosynthesis principles;
c) eVerdee, a software tool, which was also suggested as a tool
for EPDs in this sector. This tool uses the LCM2001 method for the
LCIA and possesses a fully integrated sector-specific database;
d) MEXCALCA, which allows for LCIA results for a crop in a
specific country to be derived from LCIA data of the same crop from
another country (use of proxy data and generalisation).
Conclusions
Some preliminary criteria for the selection/
development of a project-specific simplified tool
have been identified:
 ISO-compliant tool
 Broad focus (a number of impact categories to be considered,
not just one, like, e.g. in Carbon Footprint)
 User-friendly interface
 Need to select a tool requiring limited data or easily adaptable
to existing databases
 Tool already existing (maybe adapted)
 Tool which focuses on the most relevant life cycle steps
identified in our review
Integration with EPD, POEMS
As soon as the most suitable simplified tool is identified, it will be tested in
the framework of a small Italian winemaking firm for its robustness and
effectiveness.
Acknowledgements
This presentation was based on some preliminary results of the
Eco-Management for Food Project co-funded by the Italian
Ministry of Education, University and Research (PRIN no.
2008TXFBYT).