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- Adrianto, Lugas Raka, et al.
(författare)
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How can LCA include prospective elements to assess emerging technologies and system transitions? The 76th LCA Discussion Forum on Life Cycle Assessment, 19 November 2020
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1614-7502 .- 0948-3349. ; 26:8, s. 1541-1544
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper summarizes the 76th LCA Discussion Forum end its main findings. Main issues when addressing emerging technologies identified were: the lack of primary data, the need for (shared) future background scenarios and (guidlines for) a common methodology. The following recommendations have been derived by the organizers: 1) Specific foreground inventories are always tailor-made, but consistency can be improved through lists of mandatory considerations. 2) Continue sharing (future) technology data and proxy processes, that can be readily replicated to new studies and assist in developing inventories. 3) Streamline and unify the process of including scenarios for background systems. New approaches may provide first important solutions to efficiently include consistent future scenarios in prospective LCA.
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| 2. |
- Corrado, Sara, et al.
(författare)
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Food waste accounting methodologies : Challenges, opportunities, and further advancements
- 2019
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Ingår i: Global Food Security. - : Elsevier BV. - 2211-9124. ; 20, s. 93-100
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- About one third of the food produced globally is wasted along the food chain, representing a burden for the environment and an inefficiency of the food system. Tackling food waste is a priority on the global political agenda to guarantee food security. Defining a methodology for food waste quantification is key to monitoring progress towards the achievement of reduction targets. This paper summarises the outcomes of a workshop on food waste accounting co-organised by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre and Directorate-General on Health and Food Safety with the aim of stimulating harmonisation of methodologies, identifying challenges, opportunities, and further advancement for food waste accounting. The paper presents methodological aspects, e.g. system boundaries, reliability of data, accounting of water flows, to ensure better support to food waste policy design and interventions. It addresses all the actors of the food supply chain, governments, and research institutions. © 2019 The Authors
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Notarnicola, Bruno, et al.
(författare)
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The role of life cycle assessment in supporting sustainable agri-food systems : A review of the challenges
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 140, s. 399-409
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Life cycle thinking is increasingly seen as a key concept for ensuring a transition towards more sustainable production and consumption patterns. As food production systems and consumption patterns are among the leading drivers of impacts on the environment, it is important to assess and improve food-related supply chains as much as possible. Over the years, life cycle assessment has been used extensively to assess agricultural systems and food processing and manufacturing activities, and compare alternatives “from field to fork” and through to food waste management. Notwithstanding the efforts, several methodological aspects of life cycle assessment still need further improvement in order to ensure adequate and robust support for decision making in both business and policy development contexts. This paper discusses the challenges for life cycle assessment arising from the complexity of food systems, and recommends research priorities for both scientific development and improvements in practical implementation. In summary, the intrinsic variability of food production systems requires dedicated modelling approaches, including addressing issues related to: the distinction between technosphere and ecosphere; the most appropriate functional unit; the multi-functionality of biological systems; and the modelling of the emissions and how this links with life cycle impact assessment. Also, data availability and interpretation of the results are two issues requiring further attention, including how to account for consumer behaviour.
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| 5. |
- Rydberg, Tomas, 1962, et al.
(författare)
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Towards a common conceptual framework for chemical footprint bridging Risk Assessment and Life Cycle Assessment: Short review and way forward
- 2014
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Ingår i: SETAC 24th Annual Meeting, Basel, Switserland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Several studies have been presented recently, applying the chemical footprint (ChF) concept trying to address a variety of questions, often, but not always, to aggregate pollution of many chemicals to one or a few indicators. Furthermore, the possiblity to link chemical pollution to the concept of planetary boundaries, e.g. through the ChF concept, has also been discussed in recent publications. While the planetary boundary concept is pointed out as very difficult for chemical pollution, because of its local or regional nature, there is a need for an integrated chemical assessment and management approach on the regional and global level.This paper provides a short review and conceptual analysis regarding ChF, and suggests a way forward towards a common science based Conceptual Framework for Chemical Footprinting methods, bridging Risk Assessment (RA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) science and methods.Although varying, the approaches reviewed typically are rooted in the knowledge basis of both RA and LCA. Questions for further elaboration are, e.g.: (a) Is a ChF assigned to an object in the technosphere: point source, value chain, sector, or the whole economy, and if so, on what scale (Sub-national to Global), (b) Is a ChF assigned to an object in the biosphere: specific location, or a specific organism (man?), (c) Is the number of chemicals involved one, several, all?, (e) Are chemicals treated as individuals, or grouped, or aggregated by means of toxicity related summation (TCDD-TEQ, UseTox, else). (f) What position to indicate in the cause-effect chain: from occurrence in the technosphere, to the “n-th” order effect in the environment? (f) Are also metabolites included?, and (g) What are relevant impacts, i.e. human health, or ecosystem integrity (only), or also e.g. photo chemical oxidant formation, among others?Given the apparent versatility of the concept and its potential use in chemicals management, a substantial motive to collate the initiatives exists. A SETAC-Working group would be a functional way forward with the goal to e.g.: 1) frame the existing methodologies according to applications and 2) evaluate and fill gaps and weaknesses of proposed methodologies. Input from both the RA and LCA communities are necessary to reach sound and versatile methods which are useful for chemical risk reduction and management, and to underpin development towards the definition of a planetary boundary, or boundaries, for chemical pollution.
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| 6. |
- Sala, Serenella, et al.
(författare)
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In quest of reducing the environmental impacts of food production and consumption
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526 .- 1879-1786. ; 140, s. 387-398
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Food supply chains are increasingly associated with environmental and socio-economic impacts. An increasing global population, an evolution in consumers’ needs, and changes in consumption models pose serious challenges to the overall sustainability of food production and consumption. Life cycle thinking (LCT) and assessment (LCA) are key elements in identifying more sustainable solutions for global food challenges. In defining solutions to major global challenges, it is fundamentally important to avoid burden shifting amongst supply chain stages and amongst typologies of impacts, and LCA should, therefore, be regarded as a reference method for the assessment of agri-food supply chains. Hence, this special volume has been prepared to present the role of life cycle thinking and life cycle assessment in: i) the identification of hotspots of impacts along food supply chains with a focus on major global challenges; ii) food supply chain optimisation (e.g. productivity increase, food loss reduction, etc.) that delivers sustainable solutions; and iii) assessment of future scenarios arising from both technological improvements and behavioural changes, and under different environmental conditions (e.g. climate change). This special volume consists of a collection of papers from a conference organized within the last Universal Exposition (EXPO2015) “LCA for Feeding the planet and energy for life” in Milan (Italy) in 2015 as well as other contributions that were submitted in the year after the conference that addressed the same key challenges presented at the conference. The papers in the special volume address some of the key challenges for optimizing food-related supply chains by using LCA as a reference method for environmental impact assessment. Beyond specific methodological improvements to better tailor LCA studies to food systems, there is a clear need for the LCA community to “think outside the box”, exploring complementarity with other methods and domains. The concepts and the case studies presented in this special volume demonstrate how cross-fertilization among difference science domains (such as environmental, technological, social and economic ones) may be key elements of a sustainable “today and tomorrow” for feeding the planet.
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| 7. |
- Vanham, Davy, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental footprint family to address local to planetary sustainability and deliver on the SDGs
- 2019
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Ingår i: Science of the Total Environment. - : ELSEVIER. - 0048-9697 .- 1879-1026. ; 693
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The number of publications on environmental footprint indicators has been growing rapidly, but with limited efforts to integrate different footprints into a coherent framework. Such integration is important for comprehensive understanding of environmental issues, policy formulation and assessment of trade-offs between different environmental concerns. Here, we systematize published footprint studies and define a family of footprints that can be used for the assessment of environmental sustainability. We identify overlaps between different footprints and analyse how they relate to the nine planetary boundaries and visualize the crucial information they provide for local and planetary sustainability. In addition, we assess how the footprint family delivers on measuring progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), considering its ability to quantify environmental pressures along the supply chain and relating them to the water-energy-food-ecosystem (WEFE) nexus and ecosystem services. We argue that the footprint family is a flexible framework where particular members can be included or excluded according to the context or area of concern. Our paper is based upon a recent workshop bringing together global leading experts on existing environmental footprint indicators. Elsevier B.V.
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