Evaluating Environmental and Energy Performance Indicators of Food Systems, within Circular Economy and “Farm to Fork” Frameworks

Abstract

This study proposes a framework of environmental and energy performance indicators identified and critically evaluated within the scientific literature and the Agricultural European Database for the monitoring and evaluation of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union. The identified set of performance indicators encompasses the whole life cycle of agri-food systems from primary production stage until end-of-life stage in agreement with the circular economy and EU “farm to fork strategy” frameworks. In particular, the practices/goals/targets suggested in the latter (e.g., organic farming goals, more relevance assigned to plant-based diets, support for the creation of short supply chains, and reduction in food losses and waste) have guided the search for the main topics of interest in our analysis and the associated environmental and energy indicators. The results of this study evidence a proposed set of performance indicators selected from the literature among LCA and non-LCA indicators (midpoint LCA impacts, cumulative energy use, emergy accounting, and material flow accounting, among others) that could be helpful in integrating the EU CAP indicators for monitoring and evaluating efforts and achieved results toward implementing and controlling the effectiveness of the adopted “farm to fork” policy and related legislative measures, as well as the application of the circular economy model.

Developing an Evaluation Framework for Circular Agriculture: A Pathway to Sustainable Farming

“…The MCDA allows for a structured assessment of the diverse production factors of agriculture, each with its own set of criteria and objectives. By employing MCDA techniques, stakeholders can weigh the environmental, economic, and social aspects of various agricultural strategies, providing an improved perspective on the consequences of their choices [36,52,53].…”

“…Furthermore, the utilization of LCA-based metrics proves to be particularly effective when assessing CE strategies at a micro-level. In this case, the objective is to scale the circularity of either a product (to evaluate its capacity to maintain both material quantity and quality) or a system (to evaluate a company's proficiency in implementing circular practices) [27,28,36,52].…”

“…An Emergy analysis is a valuable approach in evaluating circular agriculture systems. The Emergy analysis converts different elements in the ecological economic system into solar energy values, unifies different types of energy that are difficult to compare in ecological or ecological economic systems, and quantitatively analyzes the utilization status of various resource inputs and outputs [36,51]. Emergy represents the solar energy required to produce the considered inputs.…”

“…Environmental and energy indicators in the life cycle of olive oil and durum wheat were evaluated by an Italian team for integrating the whole life cycle of agri-food systems from the primary production stage until the end-of-life stage in agreement with the circular economy and EU "farm to fork strategy" frameworks [36]. The indicators were grouped by primary production, both crop production and livestock, shifting towards processing, distribution, retail, and consumption.…”