Are the present standard methods effectively useful to mitigate the environmental impact of the 99% EU food and drink enterprises?

Environmental assessment of diets: overview and guidance on indicator choice

Comprehensive but interpretable assessment of the environmental performance of diets involves choosing a set of appropriate indicators. Current knowledge and data gaps on the origin of dietary foodstuffs restrict use of indicators relying on site-specific information. This Personal View summarises commonly used indicators for assessing the environmental performance of diets, briefly outlines their benefits and drawbacks, and provides recommendations on indicator choices for actors across multiple fields involved in activities that include the environmental assessment of diets. We then provide recommendations on indicator choices for actors across multiple fields involved in activities that use environmental assessments, such as health and nutrition experts, policy makers, decision makers, and private-sector and public-sector sustainability officers. We recommend that environmental assessment of diets should include indicators for at least the five following areas: climate change, biosphere integrity, blue water consumption, novel entities, and impacts on natural resources (especially wild fish stocks), to capture important environmental trade-offs. If more indicators can be handled in the assessment, indicators to capture impacts related to land use quantity and quality and green water consumption should be used. For ambitious assessments, indicators related to biogeochemical flows, stratospheric ozone depletion, and energy use can be added.

Rice cultivation and processing: Highlights from a life cycle thinking perspective

The agri-food sector needs both water and energy and it also contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; among the various activities within this sector, rice production has a particularly significant impact on the environment. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the widely used approaches for evaluating the environmental impacts of a product, and as such, it is useful for examining the impacts of the rice industry. In recent years, LCA has been increasingly utilized to provide detailed insight into rice production processes. This review focuses on the application of LCA in rice production. Rice LCA studies were gathered in Scopus®. A total of 76 papers were examined up to the end of 2022. Most studies have evaluated the environmental impact of rice production and identified problem areas and opportunities for improvement. But there is a discrepancy in inputs considered, multifunctionality, emissions estimation and use of FU, which makes it challenging to compare LCA results, while some key aspects such as loss of biodiversity and variation of soil organic carbon and fertility are often not considered or roughly modelled. Only a small number (13 studies) evaluated economic consequences and investigated the impact of rice production on biodiversity (4 studies), indicating a stronger focus on environmental rather than socioeconomic aspects and limitations in evaluating certain environmental effects such as biodiversity and soil fertility.

A systematic literature review of life cycle assessments in the durum wheat sector

It is recognised today that the global food system does not always deliver good nutrition for all human beings, and, additionally, dramatically contributes to climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss. In particular, the cereal sector threatens biodiversity and ecosystem functions, due to environmentally harmful farming activities, that critically alter climate conditions, along with energy, land, and water resources. According to this paper's authors' opinion, this supports the rationale of conducting a systematic literature review of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) in the durum wheat (DW) sector, to highlight environmental hotspots and improvement potentials in the phases of cultivation and processing into finished products like pasta and bread. Methodological aspects were also discussed in this paper, to provide useful insights on how to best perform LCA in such agri-food supply chains. Given the findings from the papers reviewed, the authors could document that the cultivation phase is the primary environmental hotspot of DW-derived food products and suggested several mitigation and improvements solution including, organic farming practices, diversified cropping systems, reduction of N fertilisers and pesticides application, and irrigation optimisation strategies. Furthermore, the review highlighted that there exist two main gaps in the literature, mainly related to the scarce attention on the organic farming sector and DW landraces, and the lack of nutritional-property accounting in LCAs. Finally, although specific, the review may be of interest to researchers, LCA practitioners, farmers and producers, policy- and decision-makers, and other stakeholders, and could support the promotion of environmental sustainability in the DW sector.

Carbon Footprint of a Typical Neapolitan Pizzeria

Neapolitan pizza is very popular worldwide and is registered on the traditional specialties guaranteed (TSG) list. This study was aimed at identifying the cradle-to-grave carbon footprint (CF) of a medium-sized pizza restaurant serving in situ or takeaway true Neapolitan pizzas conforming to the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 standard method. An average CF of ~4.69 kg CO2e/diner was estimated, about 74% of which was due to the production of the ingredients used (with buffalo mozzarella cheese alone representing as much as 52% of CF). The contribution of beverages, packaging materials, transportation, and energy sources varied within 6.8 and 4.6% of CF. The percentage relative variation of CF with respect to its basic score was of about +26%, +4.4%, and +1.6% or +2.1%, provided that the emission factor of buffalo mozzarella, fresh cow mozzarella (fiordilatte), Grana Padano cheeses, and electricity varied by +50% with respect to each corresponding default value, respectively. The specific carbon footprint for Marinara pizza was equal to ~4 kg CO2e/kg, while for Margherita pizza, it was up to 5.1, or 10.8 kg CO2e/kg when topped with fresh cow or buffalo mozzarella cheese. To help pizza restaurant operators select the most rewarding mitigation strategy, we explored how CF was affected by more sustainable buffalo mozzarella cheese production, lighter and reusable containers for beer, mineral water, and main fresh vegetables, newer diesel-powered vans, less air-polluting electric ovens instead of traditional wood-fired ovens, as well as renewable electricity sources.

Life Cycle Assessment on Environmental Sustainability of Food Processing

Food processing represents a critical part of the food supply chain that converts raw materials into safe and nutritious food products with high quality. However, the fast-growing food processing industry has imposed enormous burdens on the environment. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is widely used for evaluating the sustainability of food systems; nonetheless, current attention mainly concentrates on the agricultural production stage. This article reviews recent LCA studies on dairy, fruits and vegetables, and beverage products, with a particular emphasis on their processing stage. The environmental impacts of various foods are summarized, and the hotspots in their processing lines as well as potential remediation strategies are highlighted. Moreover, an outlook on the environmental performance of nonthermal processing, modified atmosphere packaging, and active packaging is provided, and future research directions are recommended. This review enables quantitative assessments and comparisons to be made by food manufacturers that are devoted to implementing sustainable processing technologies. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology, Volume 13 is March 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of dried organic pasta: assessment and potential mitigation measures

BACKGROUND

In several Environmental Product Declarations, the business-to-business carbon footprint (CF_CDC ) of durum wheat semolina dried pasta ranged from 0.57 to 1.72 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO_2e ) kg^-1 . In this work, the business-to-consumer carbon footprint (CF_CG ) of 1 kg of dry decorticated organic durum wheat semolina pasta, as packed in 0.5 kg polypropylene bags by a South Italian medium-sized pasta factory in the years 2016 and 2017, was assessed in compliance with the Publicly Available Specification 2050 standard method.

RESULTS

Whereas CF_CDC was mostly conditioned by the greenhouse gases emitted throughout durum wheat cultivation (0.67 vs 1.12 kg CO_2e kg^-1 ), CF_CG was mainly dependent on the use and post-consume phases (0.68 vs 1.81 kg CO_2e kg^-1 ). CF_CG was more or less affected by the pasta types and packing formats used, since it varied from +0.3 to +14.8% with respect to the minimum score estimated (1.74 kg CO_2e kg^-1 ), which corresponded to long goods packed in 3 kg bags for catering service. Once the main hotspots had been identified, CF_CG was stepwise reduced by resorting to a series of mitigation actions.

CONCLUSION

Use of more eco-sustainable cooking practices, organic durum wheat kernels resulting from less impacting cultivation techniques, and renewable resources to generate the thermal and electric energy needs reduced CF_CG by about 58% with respect to the above reference case. Finally, by shifting from road to rail freight transport and shortening the supply logistics of dry pasta and grains, a further 5% reduction in CF_CG was achieved. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.