Developing LCA-based benchmarks for sustainable consumption - for and with users

This article presents the development process of a consumer-oriented, illustrative benchmarking tool enabling consumers to use the results of environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) to make informed decisions. Active and environmentally conscious consumers and environmental communicators were identified as key target groups for this type of information. A brochure presenting the benchmarking tool was developed as an participatory, iterative process involving consumer focus groups, stakeholder workshops and questionnaire-based feedback. In addition to learning what works and what does not, detailed suggestions on improved wording and figures were obtained, as well as a wealth of ideas for future applications

Use of twitter data for waste minimisation in beef supply chain

Approximately one third of the food produced is discarded or lost, which accounts for 1.3 billion tons per annum. The waste is being generated throughout the supply chain viz. farmers, wholesalers/processors, logistics, retailers and consumers. The majority of waste occurs at the interface of retailers and consumers. Many global retailers are making efforts to extract intelligence from customer’s complaints left at retail store to backtrack their supply chain to mitigate the waste. However, majority of the customers don’t leave the complaints in the store because of various reasons like inconvenience, lack of time, distance, ignorance etc. In current digital world, consumers are active on social media and express their sentiments, thoughts, and opinions about a particular product freely. For example, on an average, 45,000 tweets are tweeted daily related to beef products to express their likes and dislikes. These tweets are large in volume, scattered and unstructured in nature. In this study, twitter data is utilised to develop waste minimization strategies by backtracking the supply chain. The execution process of proposed framework is demonstrated for beef supply chain. The proposed model is generic enough and can be applied to other domains as well

Supply chain integrated LCA approach to assess environmental impacts of food production in Finland

A process was started in the late 1990s to produce comprehensive environmental data on particular aspects of Finnish food production with the aim of analyzing the environmental impacts (at least climate change, acidification and eutrophication and some other impacts) of products and locating hot spots in production chains. A supply chain integrated life cycle assessment was carried out on fodder barley, hard cheese, oat flakes, potato flour, cream cheese potato gratin, beer, honey-marinated/sliced broiler fillet and greenhouse cucumber. Methodological improvements in assessing environmental impacts of food products were evaluated in relation to ISO14040 and 14044 standards. Methods improved, especially regarding quality of cultivation data and previously reported data from the literature, impact assessment and calculations for assessment of leaching from agriculture. As a generic conclusion on the share of contributions of the various phases of production chains to environmental impact: agriculture was the most important phase, especially in terms of eutrophication potential. Work in food LCA methodology has provided a sound base for future development in assessing environmental impacts of food products. In the future providing more and more environmental information on products for customers and consumers is setting new challenges for research.;MTT:llä aloitettiin 1990-luvun lopulla tutkimuskokonaisuus,jonka tarkoituksena oli tuottaa kattavasti tietoa suomalaisen ruuantuotannon ympäristövaikutuksista. Tavoitteena oli arvioida elintarvikkeiden ympäristövaikutuksia (vähintään ilmastonmuutos-, happamoitumis- ja rehevöitymisvaikutukset) sekä paikallistaa kriittiset pisteet tuotantoketjussa. Toimintoverkkointegroitunut elinkaariarviointi toteutettiin rehuohralle, emmental-juustolle, kaurahiutaleille, perunajauhoille, juustokermaperunoille, oluelle, hunajamarinoiduille broilerfilesuikaleille ja kasvihuonekurkulle. Tutkimuskokonaisuudessa kehitettyjä menetelmiä tutkittiin suhteessa kansainvälisiin ISO14040 ja 14044 standardeihin. Menetelmät kehittyivät erityisesti viljelyaineistojen ja kirjallisuustiedon laadun, vaikutusarvioinnin ja peltoviljelyn vesistöhuuhtoumalaskennan suhteen. Tehtyjen elinkaariarviontien perusteella yleisenä johtopäätöksenä ketjun eri vaiheiden merkityksestä elintarvikkeiden ympäristövaikutuksiin todettiin, että alkutuotanto oli suurimpia ympäristövaikutuksia aiheuttava tuotantovaihe, etenkin vesistöjen rehevöitymisvaikutuksen osalta. Tutkimuskokonaisuudessa toteutettu ruuan elinkaariarvioinnin menetelmäkehitys on luonut vahvan pohjan elintarvikkeiden ympäristövaikutusarvioinnin kehittämiselle myös tulevaisuudessa. Tulevaisuudessa lisääntyvä tuotekohtaisen ympäristövaikutustiedon tuottaminen asiakkaille ja kuluttajille luo tarvetta uudelle tutkimukselle

Environmental effects of different fodder production intensities - LCA study of dairy production

vokEKO/Karila, PA

A holistic, dynamic model to quantify and mitigate the environmental impacts of cattle farming

201

A plate model as a case to study environmental impacts

vo

Coupling of national environmental impacts and consumers' food choice - ways to communicate informed decisions on lunch table

vo