Structured evaluation of food loss and waste prevention and avoidable impacts : A simplified method

Interest in life-cycle assessment (LCA) for foodstuffs has increased over recent years. In the same period, there could also be noticed an increased focus on food losses and waste (FLW); hence the need for guidance or a method that assesses the environmental impacts of FLW when analyzing agrifood sy...

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Veröffentlicht in:Waste management & research : the journal of the International Solid Wastes and Public Cleansing Association, ISWA. - 1991. - 36(2018), 8 vom: 01. Aug., Seite 698-707
1. Verfasser: Cánovas Creus, A (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Bernstad Saraiva, A, Arruda, E F
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2018
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:Waste management & research : the journal of the International Solid Wastes and Public Cleansing Association, ISWA
Schlagworte:Journal Article Food waste environmental evaluations food supply chain food waste prevention life-cycle assessment life-cycle thinking
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Interest in life-cycle assessment (LCA) for foodstuffs has increased over recent years. In the same period, there could also be noticed an increased focus on food losses and waste (FLW); hence the need for guidance or a method that assesses the environmental impacts of FLW when analyzing agrifood systems with the use of LCA. This study introduces a method of assessing FLW in the context of supply chain LCA through: i) calculating the impacts of the food supply chain with the associated FLW, in order to account for the overall environmental impacts; and ii) assessing the benefits of FLW prevention strategies. After the method is presented, a practical application follows. The results of this study show that this method is able to aid LCA practitioners to include FLW on their LCA for food studies so as not to underestimate the impacts. Furthermore, the method is able to aid decision makers to assess the benefits of implementing a FLW prevention action in comparison to a baseline scenario. This method has some limitations: the attributional approach, lack of guidelines on how to estimate prevention potentials, as well as lack of guidelines to estimate additional impacts due to prevention actions
Beschreibung:Date Completed 09.09.2019
Date Revised 09.09.2019
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:1096-3669
DOI:10.1177/0734242X18778779