Energy use in the EU food sector: State of play and opportunities for improvement

The amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens tables accounts for the 17 % of the EU's gross energy consumption, equivalent to about 26 % of the EU's final energy consumption in 2013. Challenges and solutions for decreasing energy consumption and increasing the use of renewable energy in the European food sector are presented and discussed.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc

MIGLIORAMENTO DEL PROFILO AMBIENTALE DI UN’AZIENDA DI GESTIONE DI RIFIUTI ATTRAVERSO LA LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

Il presente studio illustra l’applicazione della LCA per valutare il profilo ambientale di un’impresa operante nel settore di gestione dei rifiuti nel Comune di Massafra (TA). L’obiettivo specifico è di valutare il profilo ambientale dell’intera organizzazione con un approccio tipo Organisation Environmental Footprint, individuando le fasi del ciclo di vita con le maggiori criticità ambientali, permettendo così di intervenire su tali fasi per ridurre l’impatto ambientale del sistema analizzato. La fase più critica del sistema risulta essere il conferimento in discarica del rifiuto biostabilizzato o del rifiuto speciale non pericoloso, seguita dal trasporto dei rifiuti da terzi. L’analisi ha mostrato che la principale categoria d’impatto interessata dal sistema di trattamento dei rifiuti all’interno degli stabilimenti oggetto di studio è il Cambiamento climatico seguito dalla Formazione di smog fotochimico, Domanda di energia cumulativa, Tossicità umana e Eco-tossicità dell’acqua dolce. Lo studio ha messo in evidenza che l’azienda ha finora già eseguito tutta una serie di attività volte al monitoraggio e al contenimento degli impatti ambientali derivanti dalla propria operatività. Tuttavia è emerso che vi sono comunque ancora aree di possibile miglioramento, come ad esempio lo svolgimento di campagne integrative di monitoraggio delle emissioni dalla discarica tramite la termografia ad infrarosso e l’introduzione di nuove tecnologie nel processo di bio-stabilizzazione

Life Cycle Assessment in the agri-food sector: an overview of its key aspects, international initiatives, certification, labelling schemes and methodological issues

Sustainable development and, above all, sustainable production and consumption in the agri-food sector have been key issues since the 2000s, stimulating the creation of many international initiatives and strategies aimed at reducing environmental impacts deriving from food production and consumption and at finding more sustainable ways of production. This first chapter is designed to provide the reader with an as exhaustive as possible overview of the key concerns, applications, and methodological issues of agri-food life cycle assessment (LCA). On this scale the major international initiatives (with a special focus on two relevant and recent European ones), eco-labels and declarations, and footprints (at product level, based on an LCA approach) developed so far are reported. Some of the most important LCA initiatives developed by agricultural and livestock operators, the industry sector, logistics sector, trade, and the end of life of packaging and/or food waste operators are also described in the chapter. Considering that one of the key issues within the agri-food sector is the lack of reliable and up-to-date inventory data on food products and processes, the state of the art of the major existing international LCI databases is reported, and the national and international initiatives currently under development highlighted. Finally, the chapter takes into account dietary issues in the sense that in the context of food sustainability the importance of consumer behaviour and, in particular, dietary behaviour is becoming increasingly recognised, together with the product and its production chain

Environmental impact of food consumption in Europe

Food consumption is amongst the main drivers of environmental impacts. On one hand, there is the need of fulfil a fundamental human need related to nutrition and on the other hand this is posing critical threats to the environment. In order to assess the impact associated to food consumption, a LCA based methodology has been applied to a basket of products, selected as representative of EU consumption. Firstly, a food basket of products has been identified in order to represent the average food and beverage consumption in Europe, reflecting relative importance of the products in terms of mass and economic value. The products in the basket are: pig meat, beef, poultry, milk, cheese, butter, bread, sugar, sunflower oil, olive oil, potatoes, oranges, apples, mineral water, roasted coffee, beer, pre-prepared dishes. For each product in the basket, an inventory model has been developed, highly disaggregated and based on a modular approach, built on statistical data. The environmental impact of the average food consumption of a European citizen has been characterised using ILCD methodology for the life cycle impact assessment. The overall results indicate that in the majority of the impact categories the most burdening consumed foods are meat products (beef, pork and poultry) and dairy products (cheese, milk and butter). The agricultural phase is the most impacting lifecycle stage of the basket food, due to the contribution of agronomic and zoo-technical activities. Food processing and logistics follow in importance, due to their energy intensity and the related emissions to atmosphere, occurring during the production of heat, steam and electricity and during transport. Regarding the end of life, human excretion and wastewater treatments are posing burdens related to euthrophying substances which are higher than that of the agriculture, transports and processing. Moreover, food losses which occur during the whole life cycle, during agricultural/industrial phases and at home, in terms of food waste, have to also be taken in consideration, since they can contribute up to 60% of the initial weight of the food. The results of the study go beyond the assessment of possible impacts associated to food consumption. In fact, the overall methodology may represent a baseline for testing eco-innovation scenarios for impact reduction as well as for setting targetsJRC.D.3-Land Resource

Confronto tra le PEFCR e il metodo SALCA nella LCA della pasta

Il presente lavoro ha l’obiettivo di sviluppare uno studio di Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) di una tipologia di pasta dal nome “Dedicato”, prodotta dal pastifico “Granoro”. In particolare, sono stati determinati due diversi profili ambientali, secondo due diverse metodologie: il primo profilo, basato sulla metodologia PEF e sulle relative PCR specifiche del settore; il secondo basato sul metodo Swiss Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment (SALCA) adattato alle condizioni locali della regione Puglia. Analizzando le differenze tra i risultati, emergono marginali differenze nei valori dell’eutrofizzazione marina, nell’acidificazione, nel particolato e nel cambiamento climatico, dovute alla diversa modellizzazione dei flussi secondo le due metodologie. Pertanto, sebbene le PEFCR semplifichino le scelte metodologiche, non vi sono rilevanti differenze nei risultati, i quali risultano essere coerenti con quelli derivanti da metodologie più complesse e dettagliate

3D Warp Brush Modeling

1 In this paper we introduce 3D Warp Brush, a new method for interactive shape modeling in an immersive virtual reality environment. 3D warp brushes are implicitly-defined tools that operate on triangle meshes. We combine the efficiency of explicit mesh representations with powerful implicit modeling operators. The area of influence of a 3D warp brush can be of arbitrary shape since it has an associated distance field. We define different warp functions including drag, explode, and whittle. A unique feature of our framework is the ability to convert meshes into 3D warp brushes at run time. Thus, we can easily expand our set of brushes based on a small set of base brushes, such as spheres or ellipsoids. Our underlying split-edge mesh data structure supports adaptive refinement and efficient rendering with on-the-fly triangle strip generation. 3D warp brushes only operate on mesh vertices, hence, underlying mesh processing is transparent to the modeling operations. The use of a Responsive Workbench and two-handed interaction allows the user to exploit the full potential of the modeling system by intuitive and easy modification of a base surface into a desired shape. We present several models, which have been created and modified using 3D warp brushes, to demonstrate the usefulness of our framework

The influence of the surgeon's and the hospital's caseload on survival and local recurrence after colorectal cancer surgery

BACKGROUND: Past studies have identified surgeon- and institution- related characteristics as prognostic factors in colorectal cancer surgery. The present work assesses the influence of the surgeon's and the hospital's caseload on long-term results of colorectal cancer surgery. METHODS: The data on 2706 patients from 2, randomized, colorectal cancer trials (Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research [SAKK] 40/81, SAKK 40/87) investigating adjuvant intraportal and systemic chemotherapy and 1 concurrent registration study (SAKK 40/88) were reviewed. A first analysis included 1809 eligible, nonmetastatic patients from all 3 studies. A subsequent subgroup analysis included 915 eligible patients from both randomized trials. Overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and local recurrence (LR) were analyzed in multivariate models taking into account the possible effect of clustering. The main potential covariates were surgeon's annual caseload (>5 operations/year vs 26 operations/year vs < or =26 operations/year), tumor site, T stage, and nodal status. RESULTS: Primary analysis of all 3 studies combined found a high surgeon's caseload to be positively associated with OS (P = .025) and marginally with DFS (P = .058). Separate analysis for each trial, however, showed that a high surgeon's caseload was beneficial for outcome in both randomized trials but not in the registration study. A subgroup analysis of 915 patients with 376 rectal and 539 colonic primaries from both randomized trials, therefore, was performed. Neither age, gender, year of operation, adjuvant chemotherapy (intraportal vs systemic vs operation alone), hospital academic status (university vs non-university), training status of the surgeon (certified surgeon vs surgeon-in-training), nor inclusion in 1 of the 2 randomized trials (SAKK 40/81 vs SAKK 40/87) was a significant predictor of outcome. However, both high surgeon's and high hospital's annual caseloads were independent, beneficial prognostic factors for OS (P = .0003, P = .044) and DFS (P = .0008, P = .020), and marginally significant factors for LR (P = .057, P = .055). CONCLUSIONS: High surgeon's and hospital's annual caseloads are strong, independent prognostic factors for extending overall and disease-free survival and reducing the rate of local recurrence in 2 randomized colorectal cancer trials