Acknowledgements

1. 1 Introduction & Objectives • Research context: EMAF project, aiming at: • defining, testing and disseminating innovative environmental management tools such as “POEMS” and their components (Integrated Management Systems, streamlined LCA and EPD) to help improve the sustainability and competitiveness of agro-food companies. • In this framework, our team was involved in proposing and testing a simplified LCA tool for food • 2 starting subtasks: • General simplified approaches/tools found in the literature: • The “BilanProduit” worktool, designed by ADEME (France) to offer industrial stakeholders and researchers an eco-design software utility. Information gathered for the LCIA is based on the ICPE environmental classification; • A semi-quantitative LCA for LCIA, as part of an Iterative Screening LCA. The adopted approach is aimed at lowering the quality requirements for non-energy related emission data through combined use of qualitative and quantitative LCI data; • Materials, Energy, Chemicals and Others (MECO) method. For this method no production-specific data were required (a semi-quantitative method); • Environmentally Responsible Product Assessment (ERPA) matrix method. In this method a 5x5 matrix is proposed, where on one axis are the environmental categories and on the other the life-cycle stages; • Component Manufacturing Analysis (CMA), which is an LCI method for the manufacturing stage. Here, a product is regarded as an integration of intermediate manufacturing outputs; • A fuzzy logic approach for the LCIA, where an inference model is run to transform the gathered -through questionnaires- information into environmental impacts according to a set of rules reflecting the knowledge of a panel of environmental experts; • Indicator approaches (environmental indicators, environmental impact indicators and environmental estimators); • Various types of streamlining LCA, which appear to have more qualitative approaches. • Critical review of existing LCA studies and review papers on food supply chains • Critical review of papers dealing with the issue of simplification in LCA Review of simplified LCA approaches and tools: defining a streamlined tool for food LCAs addressed to SMEsIoannis ARZOUMANIDIS, Andrea RAGGI, Luigia PETTI, Alessandra ZAMAGNIDepartment of Economic Studies - Section for Technology and the Environment University “G. d’Annunzio”, Pescara, Italy i.arzoumanidis@unich.it Here, the preliminary results of subtask “b” are presented (the project is still ongoing) • Food-specific simplified approaches/tools: • a simplified LCA where a production system can be regarded as a “black box”. In this case, for instance, instead of measuring energy consumption for each process and then sum them up, the whole farm or factory can be considered and the entire energy consumption can be allocated to the main product; • a method for generating a simplified LCI for agricultural produce where, besides collecting data through questionnaires, minimum estimations were introduced in the inventory mass balance considering basically the elementary composition of the agricultural produce and the photosynthesis principles; • eVerdee, a software tool, which was also suggested as a tool for EPDs in this sector. This tool uses the LCM2001 method for the LCIA and possesses a fully integrated sector-specific database; • MEXCALCA, which allows for LCIA results for a crop in a specific country to be derived from LCIA data of the same crop from another country (use of proxy data and generalisation). 2 Materials & Methods • A total number of 38 papers were reviewed: • 6 directly related to food • 3 somehow related to the food sector (e.g. packaging) • the rest focused on a variety of products/sectors. • Tools focusing on a single environmental impact category (such as global warming – e.g., Carbon Footprint) were NOT reviewed. http://ww2.unime.it/emaf 4 Conclusions • Some preliminary criteriafor the selection/ • development of a project-specific simplified tool • have been identified: • ISO-compliant tool • Broad focus (a number of impact categories to be considered, not just one, like, e.g. in Carbon Footprint) • User-friendly interface • Need to select a tool requiring limited data or easily adaptable to existing databases • Tool already existing (maybe adapted) • Tool which focuses on the most relevant life cycle steps identified in our review • Integration with EPD, POEMS 3 Results & Discussion • Need for simplification • (a need highlighted also in the EU Green Paper on Integrated Product Policy) • Most papers reviewed identify that the need to simplify is linked to: • time and cost (esp. for SMEs) needed to of carry out a full LCA. • dealing with difficulties met in full LCAs (data gaps and asymmetries, and inconsistencies in LCI) • obtaining a more pro-active attitude in the design phase. As soon as the most suitable simplified tool is identified, it will be tested in the framework of a small Italian winemaking firm for its robustness and effectiveness. Acknowledgements This presentation was based on some preliminary results of the Eco-Management for Food Project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (PRIN no. 2008TXFBYT).