Climate change impact of food distribution: The case of reverse logistics for bread in Sweden

Efficient and purposeful transport of food, from primary production to waste management, is essential to drive the necessary transition towards sustainable production and consumption of food within planetary boundaries. This is particularly the case for bread, one of the most frequently wasted food items in Europe. In Sweden, bread is often sold under a take-back agreement where bakeries are responsible for transportation up to the supermarket shelf and for the collection of unsold products. This provides an opportunity for reverse logistics, but creates a risk of inefficient transport that could reduce the environmental benefits of prevention and valorization of surplus bread. This study assessed the climate change impact of bread transport in Sweden and evaluated the impact of alternative food transport pathways. Life cycle assessment revealed the climate change impact of conventional bread transport, from bakery gate to waste management, to be on average 49.0 g CO2e per kg bread with 68 % deriving from long-distance transport, 26 % from short-distance delivery, and 6 % from waste transport. Evalua-tion of alternative bread transport pathways showed the highest climate savings with a collaborative transport approach that also reduced the need for small vehicles and decreased transport distances. The overall contribu-tion of waste transport to the total climate impact of food transport was low for all scenario routes analyzed, sug-gesting that food waste management facilitating high-value recovery and valorization could be prioritized without increasing the climate impact due to longer transport. It has been claimed that conventional take-back agreements are responsible for most of the climate change impact related to bread transport, but we identified long distances between bakeries and retailers as the main contributor to transport climate impacts.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Institution of Chemical Engineers. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Environmental Assessment of Upgrading Horticultural Side Streams—The Case of Unharvested Broccoli Leaves

: To facilitate transition to a sustainable food system, it is necessary to address food losses. A large proportion of waste occurs during primary production, with large quantities of edible crop parts left in the field at harvest. One such product is broccoli, where normally only around one-third of the edible parts of the plant are harvested in Sweden. Much of the broccoli plant consists of edible leaves and this side stream represents an unused resource with great potential. This study assessed the potential environmental savings that can be achieved by utilising broccoli side streams as a powder in soups and bread. Consequential and attributional life cycle assessments were conducted, based on scenarios relevant for growers in southern Sweden. The results showed that the scenario with the largest saving potential was to process the broccoli side streams into a powder for use in broccoli soup. The main saving was due to substitution of imported broccoli powder, which was assumed to be produced from broccoli florets using a more fossil-based energy mix. The second best scenario was to use the side-stream broccoli powder as a wheat substitute in bread but, since wheat flour is less resource-demanding than imported broccoli powder, the emission savings were lower in this case. However, replacing wheat flour with a vegetable-based product could provide additional health benefits that are important in achieving a healthy, locally available, and environmentally friendly diet suitable for a sustainable food system

Sustainability assessment of surplus food donation: A transfer system generating environmental, economic, and social values

Retailers' food waste, often consisting of edible food, could be reduced, while simultaneously tackling food insecurity, through surplus food donations to vulnerable groups. However, sustainability assessments of food donations covering all three sustainability perspectives are scarce, hampering decision-makers in prioritizing donation as a food waste management measure. This Swedish case study assessed the environmental, economic, and social aspects of surplus food donation and examined trade-offs between the different sustainability perspectives. Methods included life cycle assessment, net economic benefit calculation, social life cycle assessment based on food security questionnaires, and nutritional assessments. The results showed that food donation was a way to reduce food waste benefitting the environment and adding economic and social value, to vulnerable people in particular. Despite substantial rebound effects offsetting some potential environmental savings, food bag donations outcompeted anaerobic digestion as a food waste management option in terms of environmental mitigation effect. Regarding trade-offs, accrued savings causing the rebound effects generated important social value for the donation recipients, by relieving their personal finances. Private and public investment was required to fund the donation units, but positive economic value was generated through valorization of surplus food. Food bag donations also showed potential to alleviate recipients' food insecurity and to contribute positively to recipients' nutrition intake. To realize the potential of surplus food donation, policy measures should be better aligned with the waste hierarchy. Despite some trade-offs and inability to solve the underlying problems of food insecurity, food donations have great short-term potential to contribute to a more sustainable society

Life cycle assessment of fish oil substitute produced by microalgae using food waste

Fish oil has been used in conventional aquaculture for decades, despite the known links between increasing global demand for fish and depletion of natural resources and vital ecosystems (FAO, 2020, 2019). Alternative feed ingredients, including algae oil rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), has therefore been increasingly used to substitute traditional fish oil. Heterotrophic algae cultivation in bioreactors can be supported by a primary carbon feedstock recovered from food waste, a solution that could reduce environmental impacts and support the transition towards circular food systems. This study used life cycle assessment to quantify environmental impact of DHA produced by the heterotrophic algae Crypthecodinium cohnii, using short-chain carboxylic acids derived from dark fermentation of food waste. The future potential of DHA from algae was evaluated by comparing the environmental impact to that of DHA from Peruvian anchovy oil. With respect to global warming, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication and land use, algae oil inferred -52 ton CO2eq, 3.5 ton SO2eq, -94 kg Peq, 2700 m2 eq, respectively per ton DHA. In comparison, the impact per ton DHA from fish oil was -15 ton CO2eq, 3.9 ton SO2eq, -97 kg Peq and 3200 m2 eq. Furthermore, algae oil showed lower climate impact compared to canola and linseed oil. By including Ecosystem damage as indicator for ecosystem quality at endpoint level, the important aspect of biodiversity impact was accounted for. Although the method primarily accounts for indirect effects on biodiversity, DHA from algae oil showed lower Ecosystem damage compared to fish oil even when future energy development, optimized production, increased energy demand and effects on biotic resources were considered via sensitivity analyses. As the results suggest, algae oil holds a promising potential for increased sustainability within aquaculture, provided that continued development and optimization of this emerging technology is enabled through active decision-making and purposeful investments

Environmental benefits of circular food systems: The case of upcycled protein recovered using genome edited potato

Although essential in the human diet, large quantities of available protein are currently lost or under-utilized within the food system, including protein rich side streams from conventional potato starch production. By using the genome editing technique CRISPR-Cas9, conventional starch potato cultivars can be upgraded to facilitate high-value recovery of potato protein fit for human consumption. In turn, this could support the nessecary transition towards more circular food systems. The aim of this study was to assess what environmental benefits could be gained by shifting from conventional protein recovery practice to a novel approach using genome edited potato. Our results, using consequential life cycle assessment, showed that the novel protein recovery scenario provided substantial environmental savings for every ton potato starch produced, with a reduction in global warming impact, terrestrial acidification, land use and ecosystem damage of −720 kgCO2eq, −13 kgSO2eq, −760 m2a crop eq, and −1.1 × 10−5 species.yr respectively. The potential environmental benefits of using genome edited potato were maintained even when simulating reduced tuber yield, increased production inputs, and substitution of various protein sources. Although currently limited by EU legislation and technical maturity, high-value protein recovery from food side streams holds a promising potential to support sustainable production and circularity within the food system

RASSF1A–LATS1 signalling stabilizes replication forks by restricting CDK2-mediated phosphorylation of BRCA2

Genomic instability is a key hallmark of cancer leading to tumour heterogeneity and therapeutic resistance. ​BRCA2 has a fundamental role in error-free DNA repair but also sustains genome integrity by promoting ​RAD51 nucleofilament formation at stalled replication forks. ​CDK2 phosphorylates ​BRCA2 (pS3291-​BRCA2) to limit stabilizing contacts with polymerized ​RAD51; however, how replication stress modulates ​CDK2 activity and whether loss of pS3291-​BRCA2 regulation results in genomic instability of tumours are not known. Here we demonstrate that the Hippo pathway kinase ​LATS1 interacts with ​CDK2 in response to genotoxic stress to constrain pS3291-​BRCA2 and support ​RAD51 nucleofilaments, thereby maintaining genomic fidelity during replication stalling. We also show that ​LATS1 forms part of an ​ATR-mediated response to replication stress that requires the tumour suppressor ​RASSF1A. Importantly, perturbation of the ​ATR–​RASSF1A–​LATS1 signalling axis leads to genomic defects associated with loss of ​BRCA2 function and contributes to genomic instability and ‘BRCA-ness’ in lung cancers

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV