Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Food Supply Chain Environmental Evaluation

Tamíris Pacheco da Costa (), James Gillespie, Katarzyna Pelc, Abi Adefisan, Michael Adefisan, Ramakrishnan Ramanathan and Fionnuala Murphy
Additional contact information
Tamíris Pacheco da Costa: School of Biosystems & Food Engineering, University College Dublin, Agriculture Building, UCD Belfield, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland
James Gillespie: School of Computing, Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Magee Campus, Ulster University, Northland Road, Londonderry BT48 7JL, UK
Katarzyna Pelc: Bedfordshire Business School, University of Bedfordshire, Putteridge Bury, R. 220, Hitchin Road, Luton LU2 8LE, UK
Abi Adefisan: Yumchop Foods, Westward, Brackley Road, Towcester NN12 6HX, UK
Michael Adefisan: Yumchop Foods, Westward, Brackley Road, Towcester NN12 6HX, UK
Ramakrishnan Ramanathan: Essex Business School, University of Essex, Southend Campus, Elmer Approach, Southend-on-Sea, Essex CO4 3SQ, UK
Fionnuala Murphy: School of Biosystems & Food Engineering, University College Dublin, Agriculture Building, UCD Belfield, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-24

Abstract: Food is at the centre of efforts to combat climate change, reduce water stress, pollution, and conserve the world’s wildlife. Assessing the environmental performance of food companies is essential to provide a comprehensive view of the production processes and gain insight into improvement options, but such a tool is currently non-existent in the literature. This study proposed a tool based on the life cycle assessment methodology focused on six stages of the food chain, raw materials acquisition, supplier, manufacturing, distribution, retail and wastes. The user can also evaluate the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to reduce food waste applied in the real-world problems. The tool was validated through a case study of a food manufacturing company that prepares frozen meals via vending machines. The LCA results provided by the tool showed that food raw materials production is the main hotspot of nine impact categories. The IoT technologies’ contribution increased the company’s impact by around 0.4%. However, it is expected that employing these monitoring technologies would prevent food waste generation and the associated environmental impacts. Therefore, the results of this paper provide evidence that the proposed tool is suitable for determining environmental impacts and savings of food supply chain companies.

Keywords: environmental analysis; food supply chain; IoT technologies; life cycle assessment; excel-based tool; stand-alone model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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