16 research outputs found
Life cycle environmental impacts of convenience food: Comparison of ready and home-made meals
This paper compares the life cycle environmental impacts of ready-made meals manufactured industrially with meals prepared at home from scratch. A typical roast dinner consisting of chicken meat,
vegetables and tomato sauce is considered. The results suggest that the impacts of the home-made meal
are lower than for the equivalent ready-made meal. For example, the global warming and human toxicity
potentials are up to 35% lower and eutrophication, photochemical smog and ozone layer depletion are up
to 3 times lower. The main reasons for this are the avoidance of meal manufacturing, reduced refrigeration and a lower amount of waste in the life cycle of the home-made meal. For the ready-made meal,
the lowest impacts are found for the frozen meal prepared from fresh ingredients and heated at home in
a microwave. The worst option for most impacts is the frozen ready-made meal with frozen ingredients
that is heated in an electric oven. For the same cooking method, chilled ready-made meals have higher
impacts than the frozen. The type of refrigerant used in the supply chain influences the impacts,
particularly global warming and ozone layer depletion. The contribution of packaging is important for
some impacts, including global warming, fossil fuel depletion and human toxicity. The main hotspots for
both types of meal are the ingredients, waste and cooking method chosen by the consumer. Using
organic instead of conventional ingredients leads to higher impacts. Sourcing chicken and tomatoes from
Brazil and Spain, respectively, reduces environmental impacts of the meals compared to sourcing them
from the UK, despite the long-distance transport. The findings of the study are used to make recommendations to producers, retailers and consumers on reducing the environmental impacts from food
production and consumption.The authors are grateful to RCUK (grant no. EP/K011820) and BECAS Chile for sponsoring this research
Introduction of life cycle assessment and sustainability concepts in chemical engineering curricula
Purpose
The implementation of life cycle assessment (LCA) and carbon footprinting represents an important professional and research opportunity for chemical engineers, but this is not broadly reflected in chemical engineering curricula worldwide. This paper aims to present the implementation of a coursework that is easy to apply, free of cost, valid worldwide and flexible enough to cover such holistic topics.
Design/methodology/approach
An analysis of chemical engineering curricula worldwide, a literature review and the implementation of a coursework case study are detailed. The latter combines practical exercises using free LCA software, oral presentations and debates.
Findings
The coursework goes beyond the calculation of results, giving the students key transferable skills to increase their employability, such as the capacity to negotiate/discuss in groups, software learning and development of critical thinking. The course is affordable and flexible, enabling adaptation to different sectors and engineering schools. One limitation is the challenge of ensuring robustness and consistency in marking, but this has been already improved with a more explicit rubric. The feedback of the students confirms these findings, including the learning of transferable skills as the major advantage.
Originality/value
This paper addresses, for the first time, the current state of âlife cycle thinkingâ teaching in the curricula of the top 25 chemical engineering schools worldwide, a literature review of previous experience and a description of a novel coursework taking a theoretical and practical approach to LCA, carbon footprinting and socio-economic sustainability via a free software and a comprehensive range of didactic activities.
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Waste valorisation opportunities for spent coffee grounds in the UK::an environmental perspective.
Environmental sustainability of valorisation routes of spent coffee grounds:The impacts of current waste management practices
Idea merchants and paradigm peddlers in global antitrust
In the global field of antitrust law, policy paradigms are pushed and pulled by forces analogous to those of the market. Policy entrepreneurs (typically competition law agencies) operate in a setting where, notwithstanding various cooperative platforms, competition and rivalry occur and manifest themselves in a number of dimensions. This article is thus premised on the notion that competition enforcers across jurisdictions compete among themselves on a global âmarketâ. It ventures beyond extant scholarship by elaborating more fully on the modes through which this competitive behavior is pursued. The primary competitive relationship explored is that between enforcers in the United States and enforcers in the European Union, but the article also accounts for antitrust having âgone globalâ, with the multiplication of antitrust jurisdictions and thus new entrants around the world