Life Cycle Costing and Food Systems: Concepts, Trends, and Challenges of Impact Valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

A Critical Investigation into Identifying Key Focus Areas for the Implementation of Blockchain Technology in the Mining Industry

Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2023.The value of digital information is ever-increasing as more companies utilize digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to gain deeper insight into their business operations and drive productivity gains. It is therefore important to safeguard and ensure the integrity of digital information exchange. Blockchain technology (BCT) was identified as potentially providing the mining industry with a trusted system for securely exchanging digital value. However, there is little evidence or understanding of how/where BCT can be implemented and what benefits the industry could obtain. This research study provides a fundamental understanding of what the technology is in order to identify the associated capabilities and potential application benefits for the mining industry. From a technology push perspective, blockchain capabilities are used to evaluate how the technology’s value drivers map to the mining industries core value chain processes. This was done to identify potential focus areas within the mining enterprise for further research and development of blockchain applications.ARMMining EngineeringMEngUnrestricte

New Trends in Development of Services in the Modern Economy

The services sector strategic development unites a multitude of economic and managerial aspects and is one of the most important problems of economic management. Many researches devoted to this industry study are available. Most of them are performed in the traditional aspect of the voluminous calendar approach to strategic management, characteristic of the national scientific school. Such an approach seems archaic, forming false strategic benchmarks. The services sector is of special scientific interest in this context due to the fact that the social production structure to the services development model attraction in many countries suggests transition to postindustrial economy type where the services sector is a system-supporting sector of the economy. Actively influencing the economy, the services sector in the developed countries dominates in the GDP formation, primary capital accumulation, labor, households final consumption and, finally, citizens comfort of living. However, a clear understanding of the services sector as a hyper-sector permeating all spheres of human activity has not yet been fully developed, although interest in this issue continues to grow among many authors. Target of strategic management of the industry development setting requires substantive content and the services sector target value assessment

The use of transfer pricing for smart contracts in a blockchain system for the National Health Service: A systematic literature review

Este trabalho é parte de um projeto investigação-ação composto por três fases, onde o objetivo final é a criação de um modelo de blockchain que suporte smart-contracts capazes de gerir a troca de serviços de imagiologia no sistema nacional de saúde português. A primeira fase consiste na revisão da literatura sobre blockchain e no método de custeio baseado em atividade e tempo (TDABC), de forma a identificar as atuais áreas de investigação e viabilidade do modelo de custo. A segunda fase consiste na criação de um modelo de preços de transferência após análise dos custos com base no método TDABC. A terceira fase consiste na criação de um modelo de blockchain, onde o smart-contract irá operar na gestão de serviços de imagiologia dentro do sistema de saúde nacional português. O primeiro grande objetivo deste trabalho é em perceber em que áreas de negócio pode a tecnologia de blockchain ter impacto, bem como vantagens e limitações. O segundo grande objetivo é descobrir o potencial do TDABC como metodologia de custeio nos serviços de saúde. Durante esta primeira fase do projeto concluímos que a tecnologia blockchain tem potencial para ser usada, entre outros, no setor de saúde. Fomos também capazes de identificar vantagens e desvantagens bem como limitações que têm de ser resolvidas. A revisão da literatura sobre o TDABC permite-nos concluir que a metodologia tem potencial para superar metodologias convencionais de cálculos de custo no sistema de saúde bem como na identificação e mapeamento dos processos.This work is part of a major action-research project with three main phases, where the final goal is the creation of a blockchain capable of supporting smart-contracts that manage the exchange of imaging services in the Portuguese National Health Service. The first phase consists of a systematic literature review of the literature on time-driven activity based costing (TDABC) and Blockchain. The second consists in the development of a transfer price system based on a TDABC methodology, designed for a bottom up approach to cost measurement. The third phase consists in creating a blockchain model, where the smart contract for imaging services exchange, would operate within the Portuguese National Health Service. The first big objective of this work is to find out in which fields of business can blockchain have a big impact, as well as potential advantages and limitations of the technology. The second big objective is understanding the potential for TDABC to outperform traditional cost accounting methodologies in the healthcare sector. During this first phase we found that blockchain can benefit, among others, the healthcare industry and some barriers that can limit or delay its use. On the topic of TDABC we found that it showed great promise in its uses within healthcare to measure costs, identify and map procedures, which is an important goal when dealing with complex systems

Blockchain Adoption Gains. Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Transparency in the Coffee Sector

Treballs Finals del Màster en Oficial en Empresa Internacional / International Business, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2021-2022. Tutor: Jonathan Calleja-BlancoModern day consumers increasingly value and demand transparency and traceability in their purchased products. However, the verifications of (global) value chains’ responsible processes have traditionally been left to trust. Blockchain holds the potential to disrupt entire industries by offering a range of tools to increase and ensure transparency. However, introduced in 2008, it has struggled to gain widespread adoption. Recurrent barriers have been related to fears with its ability to finance itself, once implemented. Aiming to provide empirical evidence on the increased earnings that this technology could provide to companies, this study analyses the willingness to pay of consumers for the verifiable transparency that blockchain technologies could provide. Using Logit and ordinary least squares (OLS) approaches, we find consumers to be concerned with fair production and transparency issues, but still lack full knowledge or trust of blockchain’s advantages and/or its adequate use by coffee industry practitioners

Life Cycle Costing and Food Systems: Concepts, Trends, and Challenges of Impact Valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

Peer-to-peer and community-based markets: A comprehensive review

The advent of more proactive consumers, the so-called "prosumers", with production and storage capabilities, is empowering the consumers and bringing new opportunities and challenges to the operation of power systems in a market environment. Recently, a novel proposal for the design and operation of electricity markets has emerged: these so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity markets conceptually allow the prosumers to directly share their electrical energy and investment. Such P2P markets rely on a consumer-centric and bottom-up perspective by giving the opportunity to consumers to freely choose the way they are to source their electric energy. A community can also be formed by prosumers who want to collaborate, or in terms of operational energy management. This paper contributes with an overview of these new P2P markets that starts with the motivation, challenges, market designs moving to the potential future developments in this field, providing recommendations while considering a test-case

Modernizing the Supply Chain of Airbus by Integrating RFID and Blockchain Processes

Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, has been gaining momentum within the aviation industry for improving efficiencies in the supply chain. RFID technology is not new, with many manufacturers outside of aviation being more responsive as early adopters to the technology. Currently, many of the full-scale implementation organizations from late adopters, have strategically integrated RFID technology into the manufacturing supply chain to tag parts and for airports/airlines to track baggage and passengers throughout their airport journey. Literature remains rather sparse in the implementation and success factors within the aviation supply chain as a number of businesses have kept much of the details discreet to differentiate themselves from the competitors. In this case study, we have examined the state of the early adopters in aviation to implement RFID technology into their supply chain for tracking parts, identifying information, logistics media, and other process improvements in component maintenance management. Airbus, who was the first in the aviation industry to adopt RFID will be examined. The paper examines the increasing numbers of airports/airlines use of RFID to track baggage and passengers with technology. Using information from published secondary data, we review the early adopters of RFID in aircraft manufacturing who are employing RFID to the improve supply chain and how airports/airlines usage of RFID has transcend to passenger tracking to improve airport operational efficiency and to increase passenger satisfaction. By identifying key trends in the aviation supply chain and the value-added in manufacturing and passenger experiences, this paper presents areas in need of further empirical research in order to understand the key success factors with RFID implementation in aviation

Self-Sovereign Identity Ecosystems: Benefits and Challenges

Verifiable credentials, coupled with decentralized ledger technologies, have been potential providers of trustworthy digital identity for individuals, organizations, and other entities, and thus, potential enablers of trustful digital interactions. The rapid development of this technology—called self-sovereign identity (SSI)—and the ecosystems built around it have been fostered even more by the societal needs stemming from the current pandemic crisis, when governments, non-profit organizations, businesses, and individuals are working together on different aspects of SSI to enable mainstream adoption. In this study, we build on rich qualitative data gathered from SSI practitioners to give a fresh overview of the perceived benefits and challenges of SSI. The paper advances research on the domain of SSI adoption and provides valuable insights into the feasibility of SSI for practitioners both in the private and public sectors