Review of Life Cycle Assessment in Agro-Chemical Processes

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method used to evaluate the potential impacts on the environment of a product, process, or activity throughout its life cycle. Today’s LCA users are a mixture of individuals with skills in different disciplines who want to evaluate their products, processes, or activities in a life cycle context. This study attempts to present some of the LCA studies on agro-chemical processes, recent advances in LCA and their application on food products and non-food products. Due to the recent development of LCA methodologies and dissemination programs by international and local bodies, use of LCA is rapidly increasing in agricultural and industrial products. The literatures suggest that LCA coupled with other environmental approaches provides much more reliable and comprehensive information to environmentally conscious policy makers, producers, and consumers in selecting sustainable products and production processes. For this purpose, a field study of LCA of biodiesel from Jatropha curcas has been taken as an example in the study. In the past, LCA has been applied primarily to products but recent literature suggests that it has also the potential as an analysis and design tool for processes and services. In general, all primary industries use energy and water resources and emit pollutants gases. LCA is a method to report on and analyze these resource issues across the life cycle of agro-chemical processes. This review has the importance as a first part of a research project to develop a life cycle assessment methodology for agro-chemical industries. It presents the findings of a literature review that focuses on LCA of agriculture and chemical engineering literatur

Pollution Prevention and Business Management. Curricula for Schools of Business and Public Health. Volume 1: Modules 1-3

These instructional modules are based on the premise that sustained economic development is dependent upon sustained protection ofthe environment. They also reflect the fact that preventing waste is far more cost effective than managing the waste once it is generated. Pollution prevention not only offers businesses a competitive opportunity, it is a natural extension of sound management practices. Incorporating pollution prevention into business management and government regulation will enhance longterm economic prosperity.published or submitted for publicatio

An Appraisal of Traceability Systems for Food Supply Chains in Colombia

Traceability systems have improved significantly in the last few years in relation to safeguarding food safety and quality. Although traceability is considered to be an effective tool in supporting quality control, the adoption of different traceability systems along the supply chain can bring the drawback of information asymmetry, which affects inventory management. This paper explores adoption alternatives that may facilitate the blend of traceability technologies in the food industry of developing countries. The analysis is based on a simulation model that represents the behaviour of inventory and food quality in the case of the mango supply chain in Colombia. The results show the asymmetries between traceability systems along the supply chain as well as their effects on inventory and food quality