Using the product environmental footprint for supply chain management: lessons learned from a case study on pork

Six, Lasse; Wilde, Bruno De; Vermeiren, Frederic; Hemelryck, Steven Van; Vercaeren, Mieke; Zamagni, Alessandra; Masoni, Paolo; Dewulf, Jo; Meester, Steven De

doi:10.1007/s11367-016-1249-8

Cited by 28 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…the difficulty to categorize the organizational activities and to gather all the data necessary to conduct the analysis, since some activities to include within the system boundaries (in particular, indirect activities) are not usually considered by the respective methodologies with focus on the product. In several cases, due to lack of data or resources or when considered not significant, some of these activities were excluded from the analysis (Resta et al 2016;Neppach et al 2017;Six et al 2017;UNEP/SETAC 2017;Forin et al 2018;Manzardo et al 2018b;Moreira de Camargo et al 2019); ii. the lack of necessary data on the LCA databases, both for the inventory phase and for the impact assessment, linked to the fact that some activities were not analyzed until the focus moved to the organizations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Approaches for the Environmental Impact Assessment of Organizations: Defining the State of the Art

Rimano¹,

Taddeo

Raggi

2019

Administrative Sciences

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Organizations play a key role in reducing anthropogenic pressure on the natural environment. The first step towards improving their sustainability performances is the implementation of methodologies that take into consideration multiple environmental impact categories, as well as the entire value chain. The attention of scholars and practitioners was initially addressed to the analysis of products and processes, yet in a few cases in which they were addressed, the approaches used for organizations had a limited scope and range of use. Only in recent years have they been framed in a life cycle perspective. This article analyzes two recent life cycle-based methodologies that have their focus on the organization, namely Organization Environmental Footprint (OEF) and Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA). The goal is to define the state of the art of their methodological and current application developments and consider the relevance that these methodologies can have, both in terms of internal and external commitment (e.g., for the supply chain actors) and of reporting and communication requirements. The research was carried out starting from scientific databases, integrating technical legislation and secondary literature. The results obtained allowed tracing the first evolutionary trends, identifying the main authors and scientific journals and highlighting the relevant issues according to the researchers. A content and bibliometric analysis was performed that included all the contributions published so far. Projects and case studies that practically applied the two methodologies were also identified and analyzed. Finally, the main differences between the two methodologies were highlighted and future developments were hypothesized.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Approaches for the Environmental Impact Assessment of Organizations: Defining the State of the Art

Rimano¹,

Taddeo

Raggi

2019

Administrative Sciences

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“…Russo et al [41] presented a paper with the state of the art of the PEF in the olive sector. Six et al [42] conducted an LCA in line with the PEF guidelines for a section of the pork production chain in Belgium. Soode-Schimonsky et al [43] followed the PEF methodology to calculate the environmental impacts of some strawberry production systems in Estonia.…”

Section: Product Environmental Footprintmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prospective Environmental and Economic Assessment of a Sensor Network

et al. 2021

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Sustainability is becoming of vital importance in project management, and a life cycle assessment (LCA) can ensure a body of knowledge to bear in mind the environmental burdens the project involves. In this study, two different ways of supplying energy to a sensor network are analyzed. Firstly, we analyze the environmental impact of the devices connected to the public grid. Secondly, we analyze the completely full off-grid system, with the sensor connected to a photovoltaic (PV) panel. Our findings show that the off-grid option has a greater number of benefits than the grid-connected option in terms of environmental impacts, although it is less economically advantageous. In a detailed analysis of the off-grid scenario, it can be observed that the battery is the component with the highest impact, so actions to try to reduce consumption, and, therefore, the battery size and its negative impact are taken. After reducing the battery size, the break-even point was reached, providing a net economic benefit of EUR 0.23 sensor/year. However, this analysis refers to a single sensor, and although the environmental and economic benefits seem low, in an economy of scale, this could result in large savings if these types of sensors are massively installed.

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“…Feed production, together with manure management, is a major contributor to climate change, eutrophication and acidification impacts of pig production [1,8], which also holds specifically for Belgian pig production [9][10][11]. Pig feed in Flanders consists of multiple ingredients, such as grains, by-products, minerals and vitamins [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few studies assessed the environmental impact of Flemish pig production. These studies [9][10][11] also considered only a limited number of farms [9], or an average Flemish farm [10], which does not allow differences in environmental impacts to be revealed and linked to underlying farm characteristics. Finally, most studies on the environmental impact of pig production only include a few environmental impact indicators, of which climate change is the most frequent one, while pig production also affects other environmental areas of concern [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Farm Characteristics and Feed Compositions on the Environmental Impact of Pig Production in Flanders: Productivity, Energy Use and Protein Choices Are Key

et al. 2021

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The growing pig production sector is a large contributor of negative impacts to the environment and feed production is responsible for a large part of these impacts. Pig production systems, including feed compositions, are variable, resulting in variable potential environmental impacts. This study investigated the influence of different farm characteristics and feed compositions on the environmental impact of pig production in Flanders. A Life Cycle Assessment approach was followed, including data from 39 farms and monthly feed compositions in the year 2018. Even though feed production contributes significantly to the overall environmental impact of pig production, the results show that environmental impacts are more affected by variabilities in farm characteristics than by fluctuating feed compositions. A higher productivity, in terms of feed conversion efficiency and the number of pigs produced per sow, is generally related to lower environmental impacts. Another influencing factor is the type and amount of energy used. For feed consumption, high variabilities are observed for water use, mainly caused by varying levels of sugar cane molasses. Climate change impacts and variabilities are mainly caused by soy ingredients and their origin. Finally, amino acids show large contributions to the environmental impact of pig feed consumption. Our research highlights that future developments for reducing the environmental impact of pig production should target animal productivity, the type and amount of energy used and selection of protein sources in pig feed.

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Using the product environmental footprint for supply chain management: lessons learned from a case study on pork

Cited by 28 publications

References 15 publications

Life Cycle Approaches for the Environmental Impact Assessment of Organizations: Defining the State of the Art

Life Cycle Approaches for the Environmental Impact Assessment of Organizations: Defining the State of the Art

Prospective Environmental and Economic Assessment of a Sensor Network

The Influence of Farm Characteristics and Feed Compositions on the Environmental Impact of Pig Production in Flanders: Productivity, Energy Use and Protein Choices Are Key

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