Computational tool to foster systematic thinking and sustainable environmental conscience in the selection of energy sources systems in agrifood companies

Abstract

The agrifood sector is mainly composed by small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The large majority of these companies does not have the resources, either financial or human, to develop or use with tailored computational systems aimed to improve the organizational management of the company. There are undeniable advantages of the extended use of real-time software systems like Enterprise Resources Management (ERP) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) devoted to practices, strategies and technologies in the integrated management and interaction between all sectors of companies. However, these SMEs have limited resources to implement and use the abovementioned solutions, which in turns may reflect on the competitiveness. This paper describes an easy and expedite computational tool to help the decision-making concerning the selection of energy sources systems in agrifood companies. The tool provides an overview of types of energy sources used in specific agrifood sectors, as well as their major sources of pollution. Several scenarios (balance between energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions) are predicted to help decision-making on these topics. These scenarios results are compared with the average results of the specific agrifood sector. The results are also provided graphically to help an easy and expedite analysis. The use of this tool aims to foster systematic thinking and sustainable environmental conscience, promoting the energy efficiency and consequently improving the competitiveness by reducing one of today’s largest fixed costs of companies: energy consumption. Additionally, this tool also provides a prediction of the greenhouse gas emissions, to help a more sustainable and responsible commitment with the environment. The main goal of this tool is to provide the opportunity to perform individualized analysis of scenarios of energy-sources mix leading to the improvement of the performance of companies, and implementing a new thinking of continuous improvement, in order to increase competitiveness.+AGRO - Organizational qualification, energy and health and safety in the work of the agrifood industryinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio