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Increasing energy efficiency is one of the main objectives of the Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Commission (called 20-20-20), which aims at decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by jointly increasing the use of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency, all by 20% until 2020. To reduce energy consumption in producing and distributing products, it is of major importance to consider energy consumption in the whole supply chain and for all activities associated with production and distribution. For this reason, this paper studies a single-vendor single-buyer integrated productioninventory system and explicitly takes account of energy consumption. The use of energy is weighted with a cost factor and evaluated together with classical production-inventory costs. We find that if energy costs are considered together with traditional cost components, then the inventory costs of the system increase slightly in the optimum, but the total costs of the system decrease and we observe great energy savings.

Abstract. The great attention toward environmental issues and especially on energy utilization, leads the European Union to implement the 2009/28/EC Directive, fixing three main goals to be achieved for 2020 by the EU member states: 20% reduction of the greenhouse gases emission, 20% increase of using renewable energy and 20% improving of energy efficiency. To achieve these objectives, new environmental and energy policies must be taken into account not only by governments but also by firms. This work focuses on the energy efficiency effects of production planning decisions in the die casting processes. We present a model based on related literature and on experimental data. The numerical model is based on the relationship between energy consumption of the machines and the production rate of the machines, with the aim to minimize the energy necessary to satisfy the demand of finished products. This model may support manager's decisions so as to minimize energy consumption and consequently environmental impact of die-casting operations.Keywords: Lot sizing, Energy Savings, Die casting, Energy Efficiency. IntroductionThe increased level of environmental contamination, in particular air pollution, mainly caused by huge usage of non-renewable sources for energy production, the climate changing and the increasing of energy price, led all institutions (public government as well as private companies) all over the world to focus their attention on energy issues. The European Union recently adopted a directive with three main energy objectives: the reduction of 20% of the greenhouse gases emissions, the increase of 20% of using renewable energy and the improvement of energy efficiency of 20%, these objectives must be achieved by 2020. To achieve these objectives, given by European Union through 2009/28/EC Directive, the efforts of all companies with high energy intensive processes are necessary. For this purpose, the firms firstly have to test their emissions level and their energy efficiency level, furthermore they have to increase the use of renewable energy. Once defined their actual state, they have to analyse the possible corrective actions to apply to improve energy efficiency so as to achieve the European Union's objectives. The energy efficiency, the minimization of energy consumption, the increase of using renewable energy, are now the main objectives for firms, guaranteeing them not only environmental benefits but also consistent economic savings.

The improvement of energy efficiency of 20% is one of the three objectives of the EU Directive 20-20-20. To reach this goal, all production processes have to be analysed with reference to their energy consumption so as to identify actions aimed at removing or reducing energy wastes. From the Lean Production framework, the variation of the Value Stream Mapping (VSM), the Energy VSM (EVSM) is selected as a useful tool able to highlight the seven types of wastes identified by Ohno in Toyota Production System and energy wastes. This work aims at proposing a possible modification of the EVSM, which encompasses it within the Energy Audit and the Energy Balance Chart. The goal is to realize a deep energy analysis, highlighting energy wastes, in order to understand which corrective actions must be implemented or which corrections to energy reduction should be considered to reduce energy wastes.

The quality of human nutrition has acquired significant improvements thanks to the opportunity to store food in suitable temperature conditions. Refrigeration has allowed the slowing of chemical and biological degradation and hence the waste of foodstuff, but at the same time increases energy consumption. These effects impact the environment and the sustainability performance of the cold chain, and drive consumers’ choices. The stakeholders of the chain are, therefore, constantly looking for improvement actions to reduce environmental impacts. This paper aims to provide a methodology for prioritizing and assessing the energy efficiency measures for cold chains in terms of quality losses and specific energy consumption, distinguishing between technological, maintenance, and managerial opportunities. This analysis is based on the cold supply chain tool, developed under the H2020 project ICCEE (“Improving Cold Chain Energy Efficiency”) which focuses on a holistic approach, not looking only at the individual stages of the cold chain. Furthermore, an economic evaluation has been proposed considering cost savings and the investment needed.