Sustainability of food supply chains – mapping food waste and by-product synergies

Purpose: This conceptual paper introduces the theoretical and methodological basis of an analytical framework conceived with the purpose of bringing industrial ecology perspectives into the core of the underlying disciplines supporting studies concerned with environmental sustainability aspects beyond product life cycle boundaries in a supply chain. Research Approach: To develop the framework, we draw from a previous LCA-driven methodological approach applied to investigate industrial activities with the purpose of defining industrial ecology strategies for the development of ‘eco-industrial clusters’. We expand on this approach by combining it with the waste model for the food sector to classify the inventory of food waste and by-products generated in different stages of a food supply chain. Finally, food waste and by-product flows are considered with basis on the European waste hierarchy model and core industrial symbiosis concepts. These flows depict two time-related scenarios: 1. Present scenarios showing the status quo of current waste and by-product flows, and 2. Future scenarios pointing out potential food waste and by-product synergies along the supply chain. Findings and Originality: Different ecosystems scenarios are expected to emerge from the analysis applied in different industrial stages of a food supply chain: Farming, manufacturing, and retailing. The scenarios are the main outcomes of the analysis process and they ultimately describe potential food waste and by-product synergies not only within and between core industrial activities of the supply chain being studied, but also potential industrial linkages with organisations outside the supply chain that are nonetheless located in areas adjacent to the core industries in the supply chain being analyzed. Research Impact: By bringing industrial ecology perspectives into the analytical framework developed, the paper provides a valuable and innovative contribution to the wider debate on how supply chains meet the challenges of sustainability. Given the pressing challenges faced by the food sector, the framework focuses upon waste minimization through industrial linkages in food supply chains. The combination of industrial ecology practice with basic LCA elements, the waste hierarchy model, and the spatial scale of industrial symbiosis allows the standardization of qualitative analyses and associated outcomes. Such standardization enables comparative analysis not only between different stages of a supply chain, but also between different supply chains. Practical Impact: The analytical approach proposed contributes more coherently to the wider circular economy aspiration of optimizing the flow of goods to get the most out of raw materials and cuts wastes to a minimum. The transition to a circular economy based upon circular design and production, new circular business models involving reverse cycles and cascading of products, by-products and waste, as well as cross-cycle and cross-sector collaborations beyond traditional supply chain boundaries, requires a refreshed understanding of more current circular supply chain archetypes

Supply chain challenges for sustainability: the case of waste textiles as raw materials

Purpose: This paper addresses the growing problem of textile waste in the rapidly developing cities of subSaharan Africa and examines, from a supply chain perspective, the potential for waste textile materials to be transformed into the raw materials for new consumer products. Research Approach: The paper reflects on the outcomes of a field trip to Dar es Salaam in which stakeholders in a hypothesised textile waste supply chain were interviewed and waste textile materials were analysed in order to determine their content and appropriateness for reuse. Findings from the field study have been compared with current literature on logistics and market creation, waste generation, management and recycling in sub-Saharan Africa. Findings and Originality: The findings show that a rudimentary system has been in place for many years to collect and recycle textiles in Dar es Salaam. However, at the same time as textile waste is projected to increase in the city, collection rates are falling. The chief reasons for the falling rates are failures in the ‘modernised mixture’ approach to waste collection employed by Dar es Salaam City Council and market failure for the collected materials. Alternative combinations of ‘modernised mixtures’, incorporating community-based organisations, are likely to increase textile yields from unplanned urban areas but previous high-profile failures in such systems within Dar es Salaam mean there is caution on both sides in entering into such a relationship. The more pressing problem is to identify appropriate end markets for the textile materials, since in a country where recycling is entirely market-driven, failure to do so will undermine any attempt to improve the collection system. Whilst many studies have considered general recycling practices in sub-Saharan Africa, there are few investigations into textile waste. Furthermore, those existing studies do not consider the importance of understanding fibre composition of the materials in order to determine the most appropriate end markets. Research Impact: The research contributes to the growing body of knowledge on ‘bottom of the pyramid’ approaches to sustainable futures. Practical Impact: The work presented considers supply chain problems and offers approaches to tackling the increasing waste management issues of Dar es Salaam and proposes a mechanism for doing so which has the potential to provide income for the poorest sectors of the urban society

The role of packaging in minimising food waste in the supply chain of the future

This report focuses on packaging opportunities that may help to reduce or recover food waste, proposes opportunities for industry to address food waste through innovative and sustainable primary, secondary and tertiary packaging. Food security is an emerging challenge for policy makers and companies in the food supply chain. The global population is expected to grow to 9 billion and demand for food by 77% by 2050. Over the same period food production will be under threat from climate change, competing land uses, erosion and diminishing supplies of clean water. One of the solutions to this dilemma is increased efficiency and waste reduction in the food supply chain. This report focuses on packaging opportunities that may help to reduce or recover food waste. Packaging has a vital role to play in containing and protecting food as it moves through the supply chain to the consumer. It already reduces food waste in transport and storage, and innovations in packaging materials, design and labelling provide new opportunities to improve efficiencies. Product protection needs to be the primary goal for packaging sustainability, and sometimes this requires trade-offs between packaging and food waste. The report draws on an international literature review and interviews with representatives from 15 organisations in the Australian food and packaging supply chain. It considers food waste along the entire food supply chain, but with a particular emphasis on food waste that occurs prior to consumption, i.e. during agriculture production, post-harvest handling and storage of raw materials, and in the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector consisting of food manufacturing, wholesale trade, food retail and distribution and food services. Food rescue through charities is also a focus of the report. Over 4.2 million tonnes of food waste is disposed to landfill in Australia each year. Around 1.5 million tonnes of this is from the commercial and industrial sector (the focus of this report), costing around $10.5 billion in waste disposal charges and lost product. The largest single contributor in the commercial and industrial sector is food service activities (e.g., cafes, restaurants, fast food outlets), which generate 661,000 tonnes of food waste per year, followed by food manufacturing (312,000 tonnes) and food retail (179,000 tonnes). Most waste in food manufacturing is unavoidable, and almost 90% is already recovered as animal feed, compost or energy

Sustainable valorisation of organic urban wastes : insights from African case studies

Understanding the problems and potentials of the organic waste stream is perhaps the single most important step that city authorities in Africa could take in moving towards sustainable, affordable, effective and efficient waste management. This publication presents four examples of recent attempts to manage organic waste sustainably in the African context. The participants in the ‘Nairobi organic urban waste’ project have structured this case exercise in order to use the case studies as object lessons, to harvest genuine insights into the feasibility of a variety of ways to successfully and sustainably valorise urban organic waste streams. Three contemporary case examples of compost production are presented. These include composting by a community-based organisation in the Kenyan private sector and by a public-private partnership in Malawi. In all three cases, the project and case study focus is on the relations between city waste and the agricultural supply chain. A fourth case study describes the technical and economic potential to produce and use biogas from urban organic waste

Mediation Effect of Lean: A Bidirectional Synergetic Relationship with SCM for Higher Operational Performance

Competitive plants focus their efforts on reducing manufacturing costs and waste along their production chains. Hence, manufacturing programs with important practices and methodologies such as lean, JIT, TPM, and Kaizen have been embraced. However, an empirical investigation of simultaneous use of several manufacturing programs representing multiple facets of lean is lacking in the literature. Various studies have found that some supply chain management practices are bi-directionally related to lean, but its holistic measurement in relation to supply chain management is still lacking. Thus, this paper provides an evidence of mediation effect of lean from high performance manufacturing (HPM) project perspective in relation to supply chain management

Effective sourcing strategies for perishable product supply chains

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess whether an existing sourcing strategy can effectively supply products of appropriate quality with acceptable levels of product waste if applied to an international perishable product supply chain. The authors also analyse whether the effectiveness of this sourcing strategy can be improved by including costs for expected shelf life losses while generating order policies. Design/methodology/approach – The performance of sourcing strategies is examined in a prototype international strawberry supply chain. Appropriate order policies were determined using parameters both with and without costs for expected shelf life losses. Shelf life losses during transport and storage were predicted using microbiological growth models. The performance of the resulting policies was assessed using a hybrid discrete event chain simulation model that includes continuous quality decay. Findings – The study's findings reveal that the order policies obtained with standard cost parameters result in poor product quality and large amounts of product waste. Also, including costs for expected shelf life losses in sourcing strategies significantly reduces product waste and improves product quality, although transportation costs rise. Practical implications – The study shows that in perishable product supply chain design a trade-off should be made between transportation costs, shortage costs, inventory costs, product waste, and expected shelf life losses. Originality/value – By presenting a generically applicable methodology for perishable product supply chain design, the authors contribute to research and practice efforts to reduce food waste. Furthermore, product quality information is included in supply chain network design, a research area that is still in its infancy

Installment 2 of "Creating a Sustainable Food Future": Reducing Food Loss and Waste

Approximately one out of every four calories grown to feed people is not ultimately consumed by humans. Food is lost and wasted to a varying extent across the globe, across all stages of the food value chain, and across all types of food. As a result, overall global food availability is lower than it would be otherwise, negatively affecting food security and requiring the planet's agriculture system to produce additional food to compensate for the food that is not ultimately consumed by people. The potential benefits of reducing food loss and waste are large. As a strategy for closing the food gap between food available today and food needed in 2050 to adequately feed the planet's projected 9.3 billion people, reducing food loss and waste satisfies each of the development and environmental criteria we introduced in the first installment of the Creating a Sustainable Food Future series. While increasing food availability, reducing food loss and waste can alleviate poverty and provide gender benefits while reducing pressure on ecosystems, climate, and water. Reducing food loss and waste may be one of those rare multiple "win-win" strategies.How can the world go about reducing food loss and waste on a large scale? This installment of the forthcoming "World Resources Report Creating a Sustainable Food Future" addresses that question. This working paper, which will feed into that report, begins by clarifying definitions of food loss and waste, then quantifies the scale of the problem and explores the impact addressing the problem could have on the food gap. The paper then focuses on practical solutions for reducing food loss and waste and presents case studies of successful initiatives. It concludes by offering recommendations for how to scale up reductions in food loss and waste

Use of black soldier fly larvae composter bin to reduce household food waste

Food waste is the largest component in municipal solid waste (MSW). About 1.3 billion tons of food, which is equivalent to one third of global food production is lost or wasted every year along the food supply chain [1]. In Malaysia, total generation of MSW is 15,000 tons. This MSW consists of 50% food waste, of which 70% is disposed at the landfill sites [2]. It was reported that in average a household in Malaysia throw away around 0.5-0.8 kg uneaten food per day [3]. This food waste is recognized as huge problem worldwide and it becomes particularly severe to developing country. There are many methods that can be carried out to reduce the food waste generation. Composting method is one of the methods to convert food waste into valuable product with minimum cost

Moving from a Product-Based Economy to a Service-Based Economy for a More Sustainable Future

Traditionally, economic growth and prosperity have been linked with the availability, production and distribution of tangible goods as well as the ability of consumers to acquire such goods. Early evidence regarding this connection dates back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), in which any activity not resulting in the production of a tangible good is characterized as unproductive of any value." Since then, this coupling of economic value and material production has been prevalent in both developed and developing economies throughout the world. One unintended consequence of this coupling has been the exponential increase in the amount of solid waste being generated. The reason is that any production and consumption of material goods eventually generates the equivalent amount of (or even more) waste. Exacerbating this problem is the fact that, with today's manufacturing and supply chain management technologies, it has become cheaper to dispose and replace most products rather than to repair and reuse them. This has given rise to what some call a disposable society." To put things in perspective: In 2012 households in the U.K. generated approximately 22 thousand tons of waste, which amounted to 411 kg of waste generated per person (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2015). During the same time period, households in the U.S. generated 251 million tons of waste, which is equivalent to a person generating approximately 2 kg of waste every day (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). Out of these 251 million tons of total waste generated, approximately 20% of the discarded items were categorized as durable goods. The disposal of durable goods is particularly worrisome because they are typically produced using material from non- renewable resources such as iron, minerals, and petroleum-based raw materials

An LCA study of an electricity coal supply chain

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to provide methods to find the emission source and estimate the amount of waste gas emissions in the electricity coal supply chain, establish the model of the environmental impact (burden) in the electricity coal supply chain, detect the critical factor which causes significant environmental impact, and then identify the key control direction and reduce amount of environmental pollution in the electricity coal supply chain. Design/methodology/approach: In this context, life cycle inventory and life cycle assessment of China’s electricity coal were established in three difference stages: coal mining, coal transportation, and coal burning. Then the outcomes were analyzed with the aim to reduce waste gases emissions’ environmental impact in the electricity coal supply chain from the perspective of sensitivity analysis. Findings: The results and conclusion are as follow: (1) In terms of total waste gas emissions in electricity coal supply chain, CO2 is emitted in the greatest quantity, accounting for 98-99 wt% of the total waste gas emissions. The vast majority of the CO2, greater than 93%, is emitted from the power plant when the coal is combusted. (2) Other than CO2, the main waste gas is CH4, SO2 and so on. CH4 is mainly emitted from Coal Bed Methane (CBM), so the option is to consider capturing some of the CH4 from underground mines for an alternative use. SO2 is mainly emitted from power plant when the coal is combusted. (3) The environmental burden of coal burning subsystem is greatest, followed by the coal mining subsystem, and finally the coal transportation subsystem. Improving the coal-burning efficiency of coal-fired power plant in electricity coal supply chain is the most effective way to reduce the environmental impact of waste gas emissions. (4) Of the three subsystems examined (coal mining, coal transportation, and coal burning), transportation requires the fewest resources and has the lowest waste gas emissions. However, the energy consumption for this subsystem is significant (excluding the mine mouth case), and transportation distance is found to have a substantial effect on the oil consumption and non-coal energy consumption. (5) In electricity coal supply chain, the biggest environmental impact of waste gas emissions is GWP, followed by EP, AP, POCP and ODP, and regional impact is greater than the global impact. Practical implications: The model and methodology established in this paper could be used for environmental impact assessment of waste gas emissions in electricity coal supply chain and sensitivity analysis in China, and it could supply reference and example for similar researches. The data information on life cycle inventory, impact assessment and sensitivity analysis could supply theory and data reference for waste gas emissions control in electricity coal supply chain. Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to study the environmental influence of electricity coal supply chain by employing a LCA approach from life cycle of electricity coalPeer Reviewe