Social impacts and life cycle assessment: proposals for methodological development for SMEs in the European food and drink sector

Purpose: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for 99 % of companies operating in the European food and drink industry and, often, are part of highly fragmented and complex food chains. The article focuses on the development of a social impact assessment methodology for SMEs in selected food and drink products as part of the EU-FP7 SENSE research project. The proposed methodology employs a top-down and bottom-up approach and focuses on labour rights/working conditions along the product supply chain as the key social impact indicator, limiting key stakeholder classification to workers/employees and local communities impacted by the production process. Problems related to this emerging field are discussed, and questions for further research are expounded. Methods: The article reviews both academic and 'grey' literature on life cycle assessment (LCA) and its relationship to social LCA (S-LCA) and SMEs at the beginning of 2013 and includes case study evidence from the food sector. A pilot questionnaire survey sent to European food and drink sector SMEs and trade associations (as partners in the research project) about their knowledge, experience and engagement with social impacts is presented. Proposals are elaborated for a social impact assessment methodology that identifies the key data for SMEs to collect. Results and discussion: The literature reveals the complexity of the S-LCA approach as it aims to unite disparate and often conflicting interests. Findings from the pilot questionnaire are discussed. Using a top-down and bottom-up approach, the proposed methodology assesses data from SMEs along the supply chain in order to gauge social improvements in the management of labour-related issues for different product sectors. Issues relating to the 'attributional' choice of a social impact indicator and key stakeholder categories are discussed. How 'scoring' is interpreted and reported and what the intended effect of its use will be are also elaborated upon. Conclusions: Whilst recognising the difficulty of devising a robust social impact assessment for SMEs in the food and drink sector, it is argued that the proposed methodology makes a useful contribution in this fast-emerging field

Fragmentation processes of ionized 5-fluorouracil in the gas phase and within clusters

We have measured mass spectra for positive ions produced from neutral 5-fluorouracil by electron impact at energies from 0 to 100 eV. Fragment ion appearance energies of this (radio-)chemotherapy agent have been determined for the first time and we have identified several new fragment ions of low abundance. The main fragmentations are similar to uracil, involving HNCO loss and subsequent HCN loss, CO loss, or FCCO loss. The features adjacent to these prominent peaks in the mass spectra are attributed to tautomerization preceding the fragmentation and/or the loss of one or two additional hydrogen atoms. A few fragmentions are distinct for 5-fluorouracil compared to uracil, most notably the production of the reactive moiety CF+. Finally, multiphoton ionization mass spectra are compared for 5-fluorouracil from a laser thermal desorption source and from a supersonic expansion source. The detection of a new fragment ion at 114 u in the supersonic expansion experiments provides the first evidence for a clustering effect on the radiation response of 5-fluorouracil. By analogy with previous experiments and calculations on protonated uracil, this is assigned to NH3 loss from protonated 5-fluorouracil

LCA of italian and spanish bovine leather production systems in an industrial ecology perspective

This paper presents the LCA-based results of a research programme called Cicle Pell: Industrial ecology in the animal-to-leather chain funded by the EU in the framework of the Community Program Interreg III C, Regional Framework Operation, "Ecosind". The main aim of the Ecosind is to define the basis to implement a new strategy of industrial sustainable development in the Southern Europe regions. In the Ecosind framework, the general aim of the Cicle Pell project is to identify the economic and environmental improvements which can be achieved by companies in the leather industry and the related supply-chain by applying the industrial ecology principles and tools. In this paper the results of the LCA of bovine leather manufactured in Italy and Spain will be described in order to put in evidence the eco-profile of the two systems and to find out if the difference in the adopted technologies and cooperative management solutions have led to significant environmental differences

SLAUGHTERING PROCESSES IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE ANIMAL-TO-LEATHER CHAIN: LCA RESULTS

This paper is based on the preliminary results of EU-funded research project titled “Cicle Pell: Industrial ecology in the animal-to-leather chain”, aiming at identifying some improvements achievable by companies in the bovine leather supply-chain based on industrial ecology principles. A more specific goal of the project is the implementation of LCA to the tanning and slaughtering activities in the involved EU regions. Specifically, this paper focuses on the slaughtering stage within the overall framework of the Italian system analyzed. The first step of the study was the selection of the most representative slaughterhouses to be involved in the analysis. The inventory step required the collection of a huge amount of on-site data regarding specific processes and flows. During this step a number of parties were involved, such as experts in the specific field, slaughtering firms, transportation companies, and firms managing the processing and recovery of slaughtering wastes and by-products. Particular care was devoted to the data quality issues. The collected data were processed and input into a general-purpose LCA software to carry out the subsequent environmental assessment and interpretation activities. The main preliminary results are presented and discussed here

Bovine Slaughtering by-products and residues: a case-study on current and potential recovery options

THE SLAUGHTERING INDUSTRY GENERATES A NUMBER OF ANIMAL BY-PRODUCT AND WASTE FLOWS WHICH CAN BE PROCESSES AND/OR RECOVERED IN VARIOUS WAYS. BESIDES THE EXISTING PROCESSING PRACTICIES, ALTERNATIVE SLUTIONS MIGHT BE FOUND TO IMPROVE THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF THE OVERALL SYSTEM. ON THE OTHER HAND, SOME CONSTRAINTS ON THA ANIMAL WASTE PROCESSING OPTIONS HAVE ARISEN FROM RECENTLY ISSUED REGULATION. IN THE FRAMEWORK OF A WIDEReu-FUNDED RESEARCH PROJECT TITLED "CICLE PELL: INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY IN THE ANIMAL-TO-LEATHER CHAIN", THE AUTHORS HAVE EXTIMATE THE PRESENT SCENARIO OF BOVINE SLAUGHTERING BY-PRODUCT GENERATION AND TREATMENT FOR THE REGION ABRUZZO, ITALY, WITH THE AIM OF IDENTIFYING POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT SOLUTIONS. THIS PAPER ILLUSTRATES THE MAIN ISSUES CONCERNING THE DATA COLLECTION AND ESTIMATION OF A LOCAL BY-PRODUCT DATA-BASIS, THE RECOGNITION OF SOME COMMON PROCESSING OPTIONS FOR SUCH WASTES AND THE INDENTIFICATION OF ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS FOR ENERGY AND MATERIAL RECOVERY. FURTHERMORE, STARTING FROM THE OBSERVATION OF THE POOR EXISTING COOPERATION LEVEL IN BY-PRODUCT MANAGEMENT FOR THE LOCAL SLAUGHTERHOUSES, A MORE SYSTEMIC ECO-INDUSTRIAL APPROACH IS PROPOSED TO ENHANCE FIRM COMPETITIVENESS AND GENERATE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS FROM AND IMPROVED MANAGEMENT OF RESIDUE