A framework for increasing the availability of life cycle inventory data based on the role of multinational companies

PURPOSE

The aim of the paper is to assess the role and effectiveness of a proposed novel strategy for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data collection in the food sector and associated supply chains. The study represents one of the first of its type and provides answers to some of the key questions regarding the data collection process developed, managed and implemented by a multinational food company across the supply chain.

METHODS

An integrated LCI data collection process for confectionery products was developed and implemented by Nestlé, a multinational food company. Some of the key features includes (1) management and implementation by a multinational food company; (2) types of roles to manage, provide and facilitate data exchange; (3) procedures to identify key products, suppliers and customers; (4) LCI questionnaire and cover letter and (5) data quality management based on the pedigree matrix. Overall, the combined features in an integrated framework provide a new way of thinking about the collection of LCI data from the perspective of a multinational food company.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The integrated LCI collection framework spanned across 5 months and resulted in 87 new LCI datasets for confectionery products from raw material, primary resource use, emission and waste release data collected from suppliers across 19 countries. The data collected was found to be of medium to high quality compared with secondary data. However, for retailers and waste service companies, only partially completed questionnaires were returned. Some of the key challenges encountered during the collection and creation of data included lack of experience, identifying key actors, communication and technical language, commercial compromise, confidentiality protection and complexity of multi-tiered supplier systems. A range of recommendations are proposed to reconcile these challenges which include standardisation of environmental data from suppliers, concise and targeted LCI questionnaires and visualising complexity through drawings.

CONCLUSIONS

The integrated LCI data collection process and strategy has demonstrated the potential role of a multinational company to quickly engage and act as a strong enabler to unlock latent data for various aspects of the confectionery supply chain. Overall, it is recommended that the research findings serve as the foundations to transition towards a standardised procedure which can practically guide other multinational companies to considerably increase the availability of LCI data.

Research priorities for managing the impacts and dependencies of business upon food, energy, water and the environment

Delivering access to sufficient food, energy and water resources to ensure human wellbeing is a major concern for governments worldwide. However, it is crucial to account for the 'nexus' of interactions between these natural resources and the consequent implications for human wellbeing. The private sector has a critical role in driving positive change towards more sustainable nexus management and could reap considerable benefits from collaboration with researchers to devise solutions to some of the foremost sustainability challenges of today. Yet opportunities are missed because the private sector is rarely involved in the formulation of deliverable research priorities. We convened senior research scientists and influential business leaders to collaboratively identify the top forty questions that, if answered, would best help companies understand and manage their food-energy-water-environment nexus dependencies and impacts. Codification of the top order nexus themes highlighted research priorities around development of pragmatic yet credible tools that allow businesses to incorporate nexus interactions into their decision-making; demonstration of the business case for more sustainable nexus management; identification of the most effective levers for behaviour change; and understanding incentives or circumstances that allow individuals and businesses to take a leadership stance. Greater investment in the complex but productive relations between the private sector and research community will create deeper and more meaningful collaboration and cooperation.

The relation between community bans of self-service tobacco displays and store environment and between tobacco accessibility and merchant incentives

OBJECTIVES

These studies investigated (1) the effect of community bans of self-service tobacco displays on store environment and (2) the effect of consumer tobacco accessibility on merchants.

METHODS

We counted cigarette displays (self-service, clerk-assisted, clear acrylic case) in 586 California stores. Merchant interviews (N = 198) identified consumer tobacco accessibility, tobacco company incentives, and shoplifting.

RESULTS

Stores in communities with self-service tobacco display bans had fewer self-service displays and more acrylic displays but an equal total number of displays. The merchants who limited consumer tobacco accessibility received fewer incentives and reported lower shoplifting losses. In contrast, consumer access to tobacco was unrelated to the amount of monetary incentives.

CONCLUSIONS

Community bans decreased self-service tobacco displays; however, exposure to tobacco advertising in acrylic displays remained high. Reducing consumer tobacco accessibility may reduce shoplifting.

Cigarette advertising and promotional strategies in retail outlets: results of a statewide survey in California

OBJECTIVE

To examine the extent and types of cigarette advertising materials in stores and to assess tobacco company compliance with the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA).

DESIGN

A cross-sectional analysis of a random sample of 586 stores that sold cigarettes.

SETTING

US state of California.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Trained data collectors classified cigarette advertising materials by type (signs, displays, functional items), location (interior or exterior), and placement (below 3 feet (1 m) or near candy).

RESULTS

California retail outlets featured 17.2 (SD 16.1) tobacco advertising materials on average, and 94% of stores featured at least some advertising. About 85% of these were within 4 feet (1.3 m) of the counter. About 50% of the stores had ads at or below 3 feet, and 23% had cigarette product displays next to candy. In violation of the MSA, 3% of stores featured signs with cartoons and 11% had large exterior signs.

CONCLUSIONS

Tobacco companies are aggressively using stores to market cigarettes. Moreover, the spirit of the MSA-to protect children from cigarette advertising-has not been realised. Future studies should monitor industry use of this venue and assess the impact of exposure to cigarette advertising materials in stores on adult smokers and youth.

Phylogenetic analysis of the mitochondrial genomes from Leber hereditary optic neuropathy pedigrees

The nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial genomes from patients with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) were used for phylogenetic analysis to study the origin and population history of pathogenic mitochondrial mutations. Sequences of both the coding region (8300 bp) and the more rapidly evolving noncoding control region (1300 bp) were analyzed. Patients with the primary LHON mutations at nucleotides 3460, 11,778, and 14,484 were included in this study, as were LHON patients and non-LHON controls that lacked these primary mutations; some of the subjects also carried secondary LHON mutations. The phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that primary LHON mutations arose and were fixed multiple times within the population, even for the small set of LHON patients that was analyzed in these initial studies. In contrast, the secondary LHON mutations at nucleotides 4216, 4917, and 13,708 arose once: the mitochondrial genomes that carried these secondary mutations formed a well-supported phylogenetic cluster that apparently arose 60,000 to 100,000 years ago. Previous studies found secondary LHON mutations at a higher frequency among LHON patients than among control subjects. However, this finding does not prove a pathogenetic role of these mutations in LHON. Instead, the increased frequency is more likely to reflect the population genetic history of secondary mutations relative to that of primary LHON mutations.

Mitochondrial gene segregation in mammals: is the bottleneck always narrow?

The segregation of a heteroplasmic silent polymorphism in the mitochondrial ND6 gene has been followed in a human maternal lineage comprising eight individuals and spanning three generations. Heteroplasmy persisted in all eight maternally related family members. More importantly, the frequencies of the two alleles showed relatively little variation among individuals or between generations. In contrast to the findings in other mammalian lineages, the present results indicate relatively slow mitochondrial gene segregation. A narrow bottleneck in the number of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) molecules, which occurs at some stage of oogenesis, has been advanced to explain rapid mammalian mitochondrial gene segregation. It is suggested here that the segregation of mitochondrial genes may be more complex than initially envisaged, and that models need to be developed that account for both rapid and slow segregation. One possibility, which reconciles both physical and genetic studies of mammalian mtDNA, is that the unit of mitochondrial segregation is the organelle itself, each containing multiple mtDNA molecules.