Considerations When Applying Simplified LCA Approaches in the Wine Sector

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used to improve the environmental performance of food systems and simplification of LCA appears to be a vital question, especially for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Following a literature review on simplified LCA tools and their subsequent ranking, some of the best-rated tools were implemented and the results were examined in parallel to those of a full LCA

Tourism Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): Proposal of a New Methodological Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production

Tourism has become an important part of modern life styles, besides being one of the largest and fastest growing economic sectors worldwide, in spite of occasional shocks over the last decade (UNWTO 2010). Tourism’s contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) is – when direct contribution and multipliers are included - estimated at up to 10% in some advanced, diversified economies. However, this strong growth also implies an increase of undesired environmental impacts. Tourism is globally responsible for 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions, the most important greenhouse gas causing climate change (UNWTO UNEP WMO 2008). However, in terms of radiative forcing, the direct measure for contribution to climate change, tourism even could have share of up to 12.5% (Scott et al., 2010). Also, the greenhouse gas emissions of tourism are estimated to grow at a rather large rate, while a globally emissions should be reduced with up to 80% by 2050 (e.g. Scott et al., 2010). Finally, it has been shown that the eco-efficiency – the economic contribution per ton emissions – of tourism is rather low (Gössling et al., 2005). Theses data totally clash with the view, actually slightly common to many re¬searchers in the past, according to which tourism is a low environmental impact industry (McCrory 2006). Now, it is a shared concept that tourist activities are strongly related to the environment, since, on the one hand, the natural environment itself may be consid¬ered as a major input resource to the processes of tourism industries, and, on the other hand, the development of tourism as a mass industry may severely increase its overall impact on the environment (Butler 2004; Raggi and Petti 2006; Romeril 1989). Given the predictions of an increased role of tourism industries in the world economy, the environmental aspects of, and impacts gen¬erated by tourist activities should be accurately considered according to a Life Cycle Thinking perspective. This concept has been extensively advocated as the proper way of addressing the challenges linked with sustainable development, and, in particular, with those measures for enhancing sustainable consumption and production. In the framework of sustainable development policies, the “Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial Policy (SCP) Action Plan” (European Commission 2008) is a building block in the EU. In line with this policy, a wide range of environmental instruments have been developed so far for assessment and labelling/certification purposes of travel and tourist services. This ongoing proliferation of different initiatives shows a high degree of diversity in terms of scope, assessment methodologies and means and tools of communication. Although this proliferation reflects the vast variety of travel and tourist products and the complicated nature in assessing their environmental performance, these environmental instruments seem to suffer from a lack of integration and standardisation or quality control. This situation has the potential to confuse or even mislead travellers and the stakeholders within the industry. Research questions were: - What environmental instruments and initiatives are currently supporting the application of the European Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) Action Plan in the travel and tourism industry? - What are their key characteristics and how do they stand in relation to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) principles? - How can these instruments be combined in a general framework capable to render this industry low carbon and more sustainable from an environmental point of view?JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Social life cycle assessment of an innovative industrial wastewater treatment plant

Abstract Background The social impacts generated by industrial waste treatment processes have not been studied enough, as shown in the literature. Social life cycle assessment studies have mainly focused on the assessment of products and less on industrial waste, especially wastewater, although potentially relevant from an environmental point of view, and also from a social one for various stakeholders. Purpose This case study concerns the social assessment of an innovative technology to treat the wastewater of a microelectronics company. In order to produce electronic components and semiconductors, the company has to treat and dispose of relevant wastewater streams containing various toxic substances. The wastewater streams need to be treated in order to protect the eco-system, representing a high cost for the company and a potential impact on the environment. For this reason, the company developed a LIFE project to demonstrate the viability to decrease the burdens on water bodies. The positive outcome of the test on the pilot plant paved the way for the construction of the full-scale plant that will treat all the wastewater generated by the company. The objective of this paper is the socio-economic assessment of a full-scale plant designed to treat three different kinds of wastewater. Methods The assessment of socio-economic potential impacts of a new technology has been carried out through the PSILCA (Product Social Impact Life Cycle Assessment) database implementation to evaluate 65 social indicators of a wastewater treatment plant. Results The line with the highest impact is the one which treats tetramethylammonium hydroxide; this is because this wastewater flow is the most abundant (14 and 43 times greater than the other wastewaters, respectively). The most affected stakeholder is the Local Community, followed by the Actors of the Value Chain; in fact, the results referred to the functional unit considered exceed 300,000 medium risk hours in both cases. For the Local Community this result arises from the indicator "Contribution to environmental load," which is understandable considering the object of the study since this indicator includes health effects. As far as the Value Chain Actors stakeholder is concerned, the two indicators most impacted are "Corruption" and "Social responsibility along the supply chain". The analysis conducted has also shown that upstream has a fundamental relevance for the social risks detected. Conclusions Considering the current lack of studies on both environmental and social impacts of wastewater treatment, and the fact that Social Life Cycle Assessment has not been widely used in this field, as emerged from literature review, this work is the first use of the PSILCA database to assess an industrial wastewater plant. The use of a social life cycle assessment database allows the value chain of a product system to be considered: the results show that most of the overall social risk derives from upstream sectors

Considerations When Applying Simplified LCA Approaches in the Wine Sector

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used to improve the environmental performance of food systems and simplification of LCA appears to be a vital question, especially for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Following a literature review on simplified LCA tools and their subsequent ranking, some of the best-rated tools were implemented and the results were examined in parallel to those of a full LCA

Life Cycle Assessment of Honey: Considering the Pollination Service

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been increasingly used for the improvement of the environmental performance of products and services, including food systems. Amongst them, however, honey appears to have been rarely analysed. Furthermore, the pollination by honeybees can be regarded as one of the functions of an apiculture system and is of utmost importance both for natural ecosystems and agriculture. When implementing an LCA of an apiculture system, the pollination service can and should be considered as one of the functions of a multifunctional system and the issue of how to deal with this multifunctionality in the modelling of that system should be considered carefully. The aim of this paper is to explore the economic value of pollination as a potential basis for managing multifunctionality in LCA modelling as well as its implementation in a case study. Economic allocation was performed between the pollination service and honey production. The results demonstrated that the production phase is the most impactful one for most of the environmental categories (due to the use of glass for the honey jars and electricity consumption during the storage of supers in refrigerator rooms), followed by the distribution phase. Finally, the most affected environmental impact category appeared to be natural land transformation, followed by marine ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication and human toxicity

Social Life-Cycle Assessment of a Piece of Jewellery. Emphasis on the Local Community

An increasing global focus on sustainability has affected the jewellery industry by raising questions about its environmental and social impacts and ethics due to the negative impacts of gold mining. It is essential to consider the social aspects of mining activities on the socio-economic environment and the affected individuals in order to understand the sustainability of the jewellery industry in a better way. Nonetheless, this is a gap in the evaluation of the issues of jewellery in the other phases of the life cycle, observed in the literature. For these reasons, the goal of this study is to assess the social and socio-economic aspects of a piece of jewellery from the artisan’s point of view by considering the relationship between a piece of jewellery and the local community. The United National Environmental Programme/Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (UNEP/SETAC) Guidelines on Social Life-Cycle Assessment, the UNEP/SETAC Methodological Sheets and the Subcategory Assessment Method were implemented. The findings show that a piece of jewellery can play an important role in supporting the local cultural heritage by innovating the traditional product, and promoting educational activities related to the history of the product and the territory. Consequently, the local community with its historical background gives an added value to the piece of jewellery. Further research on this topic is desirable in order to improve the knowledge of this particular sector and to identify other social issues that can be involved in this product