Consumer Footprint. Basket of Products indicator on Food

The EU Consumer Footprint aims at assessing the potential environmental impacts due to consumption. The calculation of the Consumer footprint is based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of representative products (or services) purchased and used in one year by an EU citizen. This report is about the subset indicator of the basket of product (BoP) on food. The BoP food is built to assess the impact associated to food consumption in Europe from raw material extraction to end of life. The reference flow is the amount of food consumed by an average citizen in a reference year. It consists of a process-based life cycle inventory model for a basket of products that represent the most relevant food product groups, selected by importance in mass and economic value. The 19 products in the basket are: pork, beef and poultry meat, milk, cheese, butter, bread, sugar, sunflower oil, olive oil, potatoes, oranges, apples, mineral water, roasted coffee, beer, pre-prepared meals, wine, and pasta. The consumer footprint for the BoP food is assessed using 15 environmental impact categories as for the ILCD LCIA method and running a sensitivity for a number of impact categories with updated models. Results show that agriculture is the life cycle stage of the food system with the larger contribution to most of the impact categories. The product groups that emerge as hotspots in most of the impact categories are meat products, dairy products, and beverages. The main impact for the life cycle of meat products comes from the emissions due to agricultural activities for the production of feed. Direct emissions from animal husbandry (methane, dinitrogen oxide, ammonia, etc.) contribute as well. Normalized results show that the BoP food contributes significantly to several impact categories, with a different ranking depending upon the adopted normalisation reference (European or global). Ecotoxicity, human toxicity, eutrophication, acidification, water depletion and climate change are among the leading impacts. Since many LCA study on food are limited to the assessment of climate change related emissions, the BoP food baseline aims at helping to understand the wider array of impacts associated to the food system of production and consumption. Moreover, the Consumer Footprint BoP food baseline has been assessed against 5 scenarios, referring to improvement options related to the main drivers of impact. In fact, the scenarios act on the hotspots identified within the baseline and refer to the most relevant eco-innovations and behavioural changes identified through a review of the scientific literature. Scenario 1 and Scenario 4 act on the nutrients cycle, with the aim of recovering nutrients either at the production stage or the end of life stage. Scenario 2 acts at the end of life stage as well, by assuming an improvement of the efficiency of the waste water treatment in Europe. Scenario 3 is a first attempt to address the benefits of behavioural changes, with an example of reduced amount of meat consumed. Scenario 5 regards the topic of food waste prevention, and entails a number of prevention measures, acting at different stages of the food supply chain, including the use phase. The scenarios tested on the baseline of the BoP food provided insights on the potential for reducing environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe. Each scenario acts on a different component of the BoP (in term of either products, life cycle stages or composition of the basket). As the scenarios are different in type it was found out that the was a large difference on the different scores and savings among the investigated impact categories. In general, among the scenarios assessed, the options that allow for a higher reduction of impacts are the ones acting on the drivers of freshwater eutrophication, such as recovery of nutrients from urine or improvement of the wastewater treatment. It is important to highlight that results of scenarios shall be analysed considering a certain “uptake factor” across EU (it is not realistic to assume 100% change across EU27). It is also recommended to consider the combination of improvement actions, to cover a wider range of impacts and to maximize the potential of impact reduction, both at the scale of the single citizen and of the whole Europe. An example has been provided in the case of combined actions for the scenario on food waste prevention.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Consumer's behaviour in assessing environmental impact of consumption - State of the art and challenges for modelling consumer's behaviour in life cycle-based indicators

The European Commission (EC) has been developing an assessment framework to monitor the evolution of environmental impact associated to the European Union (EU) consumption. The assessment framework should help to support a wide array of policies, such as those related to resource efficiency, eco-innovation and circular economy. The environmental impact of EU consumption is assessed adopting two sets of life cycle-based indicators: the Consumption footprint and the Consumer footprint, which have a complementary role in assessing those impacts. The EU Consumer Footprint is the measurement of the environmental impacts based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of products (or services) purchased and used in one year by an EU citizen. This is based on the results of LCAs of representative consumed products (and services, where relevant). Within the framework of this project, a dedicated area of research focused on the “Product use phase and consumption scenarios”, aiming at the examination of consumer behaviour types in view of further refinement of product use phase modelling and in support to the definition of scenarios on improved environmental behaviours. Whereas the production-based perspective helps in identifying domestic sectors, product groups and products responsible for emissions and resource use, the consumption-based perspective looks at the overall environmental impact induced by the domestic consumption. Each of the two perspectives on environmental impact has its use for policy-makers. This report is addressing variability in the use phase grounded on consumers' actual behaviour patterns, with reference to the aims presented before. After a brief review of theories and models explaining consumer behaviours, this report discusses the main approaches for measuring the environmental impacts of consumption and the key drivers that influence consumers’ shift towards more envrionmentally friendly consumption choices and behaviours. Moreover, the possible link between behavioural sciences and Life Cycle Assessment, through the development of scenarios on consumer behaviour applied to the Basket of Products (BoPs) is discussed, together with the possibility to capture the rebound effects in these scenarios. Current knowledge gaps and related research needs are illustrated in the concluding section, highlighting possible future paths of research for the integration of behavioural economics into environmental assessment (e.g. to capture the rebound effects induced by household expenditure structure shifting, based on Engel’s curve), and to complement and further improve the approaches discussed herein.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Research findings and decision making: the case of renewable energy

Energy policies from local to global scale are increasingly questioned in terms of sustainability. Evidence-based and science-based decision making in this field need a robust and transparent integrated assessment of policy options. Nevertheless, scientific findings do not lead straight to political conclusions, and the relationship between science and decision making is a debated issue. The article discusses the main barriers to effective interaction and communication between scientific enquiry and decision making and proposes some effective ways to overcome these barriers, starting from experiences in the biomass energy sector. The article discusses the case of wood fuel, focusing on one of the European hot spots for air pollution, namely the Po valley in Northern Italy. It proves to be an interesting case, especially because of the ambiguity between the positive and the negative aspects of wood burning, which, if not adequately integrated by information about the specific conditions that influence pollution levels, can lead to opposite political decisions about the use of wood in local energy plans. Starting from scientific findings it is possible to derive guidelines about the best practices to adopt in order to reduce environmental impacts along the whole wood fuel chain. In this, associations of producers and of consumers and other existing networks (e.g. forestry consortia) can be very useful, either as a source of information not published in the scientific literature and as intermediaries for translating the knowledge into a more usable format and to convey information to the final targets identified (e.g. policy makers, firms and final users).JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

On weakly APN functions and 4-bit S-Boxes

S-Boxes are important security components of block ciphers. We provide theoretical results on necessary or sufficient criteria for an (invertible) 4-bit S-Box to be weakly APN. Thanks to a classification of 4-bit invertible S-Boxes achieved independently by De Canni\'ere and Leander-Poschmann, we can strengthen our results with a computer-aided proof

Consumer Footprint. Basket of Products indicator on Housing

The EU Consumer Footprint aims at assessing the potential environmental impacts due to consumption. The calculation of the Consumer footprint is based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of representative products (or services) purchased and used in one year by an EU citizen. This report is about the consumer footprint indicators of the basket of product (BoP) on housing. In order to assess the environmental impact of EU housing consumption, a LCA-based methodology has been applied to twenty-four representative dwellings (basket of products), modelled on the basis of the type of building (single or multifamily houses), the year of construction (four timeframes), and the climate zone (three zones) in which they are located. One of the main novelty of this work is the definition of twenty-four archetypes of buildings, changing the construction materials and the building specific features affecting the inventory for each archetype. The resulting baseline inventory model, referring to the year 2010, was assessed for 15 different impact categories, using the ILCD LCIA method. A sensitivity analysis has been run for some impact categories, with a selection of recent impact assessment models and factors. Results allows a wide array of considerations, as this study reports overall impact in Europe, average impact per citizen, share of impact due to dwelling typology and climate areas, as well as impact of each dwelling type per climate zone per year of construction. Single-family houses are responsible for the highest share of impacts. The same type of building has different impacts in different climatic zones, especially because cold climate requires higher input of resources for space heating. The overall results reveal that the use phase (energy and water consumption) dominates the impacts, followed by the production of construction materials. In general, electricity use and space heating are the activities that contribute the most to the overall impacts. Depending on the normalisation reference used (European or global) the most important impact category present a different relative share. However, human toxicity, respiratory inorganics, resource depletion (metals, fossils, and water), climate change and ionising radiations show the highest impacts for all the normalization references. Since many LCA study on housing are limited to the assessment of climate change related emissions, the BoP housing baseline aims at helping understanding the wider array of impacts associated to the housing system and the potential areas of ecoinnovation improvement for reducing the burden. To assess potential benefits stemming from selected ecoinnovation, the Consumer Footprint BoP housing baseline has been assessed against nine scenarios, referring to improvement options related to the main drivers of impact. The nine scenarios covers both technological improvements and changes in consumers behaviour, entailing: 1. night attenuation of setting temperature for space heating; 2. external wall insulation with an increased thickness; 3. external wall insulation comparing conventional or bio-based materials; 4. use of a solar collector to heat sanitary water; 5. floor finishing with timber instead of ceramic tiles; 6. a building structure in timber compared with concrete frame; 7. implementation of smart windows for improved energy efficiency; 8. a combination of selected above mentioned energy-related scenarios; 9. production of electricity through a photovoltaic system installed on the roof. The assessment of the selected scenarios, acting on energy efficiency, resource efficiency, renewable energy and bio-based material (scenarios 1 to 7) revealed that the potential reduction in impact for each of the eco-innovation assessed is relatively limited and that a combination of actions is needed to achieve significant improvements. Moreover, in the case of scenarios acting on the substitution of specific components of the building, the potential improvement is proportional to the relative importance of the substituted component in the baseline scenario. However, a preliminary modelling of combination of energy-related measures (scenario 8) proved to be a good way to enlarge the potential benefits coming from the selected improvements of the building stock. The results highlight as well that LCA is fundamental for unveiling trade-off between benefits associated to eco-innovation and burden arising from their implementation.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Les sanctuaires martyriaux du nord-ouest de l'Italie durant l'Antiquité tardive et le haut Moyen Âge. Étude des dynamiques socio-spatiales, cultuelles et architecturales

I santuari martiriali dell’Italia nord-occidentale tra la tarda antichità e l’alto medioevo. Studio delle dinamiche socio-spaziali, cultuali e architetturali. La presente ricerca di dottorato vuole recensire e analizzare, sotto differenti aspetti, i santuari martiriali che hanno lasciato una traccia archeologica o documentaria nell’Italia nord-occidentale, tra la tarda antichità e l’alto medioevo. Questo lavoro si pone in linea con le numerose ricerche attualmente in corso in ambito europeo sul tema dell’archeologia e della topografia delle chiese e che riguardano in particolare il fenomeno del santuario e le manifestazioni ad esso collegate, quali il culto dei martiri e il pellegrinaggio. Nonostante l’incremento delle ricerche archeologiche svoltesi in Piemonte, in Liguria e in Valle d’Aosta, la disomogeneità della documentazione relativa ai santuari martiriali rendeva auspicabile una sintesi monografica sull’argomento sull’esempio di quelle già esistenti per altre regioni italiane. In una prospettiva che ammette una grande variabilità di fattori all’origine dello sviluppo di questi centri santuariali, il presente lavoro accorda un’attenzione particolare al rapporto tra il santuario e lo spazio in cui esso si inserisce e alle eventuali strategie religiose e politiche che hanno potuto guidare le scelte topografiche nella fondazione di tali luoghi sacri. L’impatto urbanistico di questi luoghi di culto, la riorganizzazione degli spazi (sub)urbani e rurali e le pratiche degli abitanti costituiscono, insieme agli spazi liturgici e devozionali, i temi principali di questo studio. Questi fattori saranno analizzati globalmente e in senso diacronico in relazione al periodo storico e ai limiti geografii stabiliti. L’obiettifo finale – che non ha pretese di esaustività – è quello di elucidare la genesi e lo sviluppo del fenomeno dei santuari martiriali tra il IV e l’VIII secolo nell’Italia nord-occidentale. Si tratta di un tema dai limiti incerti che solo una ricerca sistematica, puntuale e comparativa a potuto definire

Effects of antihypertensive drugs on carotid intima-media thickness: Focus on angiotensin II receptor blockers. A review of randomized, controlled trials

Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and plaques have been shown to have a strong continuous relationship with cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality; therefore, carotid atherosclerosis, as assessed by ultrasonography, can be regarded as a reliable surrogate end-point for therapeutic interventions. In this survey, we report the results of 16 double blind, randomized, controlled studies comparing: 1) antihypertensive drugs versus placebo/no treatment (five trials including 3,215 patients); 2) different active antihypertensive drug regimens (five trials including 4,662 patients); 3) angiotensin-II receptor blockers (ARBs) versus other antihypertensive agents (six trials including 841 patients). Our main findings can be summarized as follows: I) Long-term antihypertensive treatment has a blunting effect on carotid IMT progression, regardless of types of drugs. II) Calcium-channel blockers (CCBs) are more effective than other antihypertensive drugs including diuretics, beta-blockers, and angiotensin converting-enzyme (ACE)-inhibitors in this blunting effect; III) the effect of ARBs compared to other antihypertensive regimens (mostly based on atenolol) on carotid atherosclerosis progression needs to be further elucidated, as a protective effect was demonstrated by some, but not all studies examined. Thus, further studies are needed to clarify the role of ARBs in this therapeutic area

Atrophy, oxidative switching and ultrastructural defects in skeletal muscle of the ataxia telangiectasia mouse model

Ataxia telangiectasia is a rare, multi system disease caused by ATM kinase deficiency. Atm-knockout mice recapitulate premature aging, immunodeficiency, cancer predisposition, growth retardation and motor defects, but not cerebellar neurodegeneration and ataxia. We explored whether Atm loss is responsible for skeletal muscle defects by investigating myofiber morphology, oxidative/glycolytic activity, myocyte ultrastructural architecture and neuromuscular junctions. Atm-knockout mice showed reduced muscle and fiber size. Atrophy, protein synthesis impairment and a switch from glycolytic to oxidative fibers were detected, along with an increase of in expression of slow and fast myosin types (Myh7, and Myh2 and Myh4, respectively) in tibialis anterior and solei muscles isolated from Atm-knockout mice. Transmission electron microscopy of tibialis anterior revealed misalignments of Z-lines and sarcomeres and mitochondria abnormalities that were associated with an increase in reactive oxygen species. Moreover, neuromuscular junctions appeared larger and more complex than those in Atm wild-type mice, but with preserved presynaptic terminals. In conclusion, we report for the first time that Atm-knockout mice have clear morphological skeletal muscle defects that will be relevant for the investigation of the oxidative stress response, motor alteration and the interplay with peripheral nervous system in ataxia telangiectasia