Combining Life Cycle Assessment of food products with economic tools.

Abstract: The economic counterpart of LCA, known as Environmental Life Cycle Costing (LCC), is of increasing concern for LCA practitioners. Just like LCA, LCC may concern food products. Yet, the literature provides few applications of LCC to food products and, more generally, to nondurable products; moreover, the methodologies adopted vary significantly within the available studies. Other examples of combined environmental–economic tools for the assessment of food products include applications of Input–output Analysis along with Material Flows Analysis (MFA) and LCA. These combinations aim at studying the way materials and substances flow through the economy and applications in these fields are well-established ones. The main results achieved by such diverse combinations of tools are discussed here, especially those which are of managerial relevance. An effort will also be made to highlight the peculiarities that may be taken into account in future applications, when carrying out economic analysis concerning food products combined with environmental analysis.

[1]  J Peter Clark.  Cost and Profitability Estimation , 1997 .

[2]  David Pimentel,et al.  ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC COSTS OF THE APPLICATION OF PESTICIDES PRIMARILY IN THE UNITED STATES , 2005 .

[3]  R. Heijungs,et al.  Material flows and economic models: an analytical comparison of SFA, LCA and partial equilibrium models , 2000 .

[4]  Zacharias B. Maroulis,et al.  Cost data analysis for the food industry , 2005 .

[5]  Takeo Shiina,et al.  Life cycle of rice: Challenges and choices for Bangladesh , 2007 .

[6]  Takeo Shiina,et al.  A review of life cycle assessment (LCA) on some food products. , 2009 .

[7]  Ettore Settanni,et al.  The need for a computational structure of LCC , 2008 .

[8]  Takeo Shiina,et al.  Energy consumption and cost analysis of local parboiling processes , 2006 .

[9]  Walter Klöpffer,et al.  Life-Cycle based methods for sustainable product development , 2003 .

[10]  Lester B. Lave,et al.  Environmental life cycle assessment of goods and services , 2006 .

[11]  Eder Peter,et al.  Meat and Milk Products in Europe: Impacts and Improvements , 2009 .

[12]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  Methods for Life Cycle Inventory of a product , 2005 .

[13]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  Life cycle costing case studies , 2008 .

[14]  Giuseppe Tassielli,et al.  Environmental Input-Output Analysis and Hybrid Approaches to Improve the Set up of the Pasta Life Cycle Inventory , 2004 .

[15]  A. Zugarramurdi,et al.  Estimation of investment costs in fish processing plants , 1995 .

[16]  Tim Lang,et al.  Farm costs and food miles: an assessment of the full cost of the UK weekly food basket , 2005 .

[17]  David Hunkeler,et al.  Environmental Life Cycle Costing , 2008 .

[18]  Giuseppe Tassielli,et al.  Environmental Input-Output analysis and hybrid approaches to improve the set up of pasta life cycle , 2004 .

[19]  Shabbir H. Gheewala,et al.  Life cycle cost analysis of fuel ethanol produced from cassava in Thailand , 2008 .

[20]  G. Blengini,et al.  The life cycle of rice: LCA of alternative agri-food chain management systems in Vercelli (Italy). , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[21]  Zhiyuan Hu,et al.  Net energy, CO2 emission, and life-cycle cost assessment of cassava-based ethanol as an alternative automotive fuel in China , 2004 .

[22]  Yoram Krozer,et al.  Life cycle costing for innovations in product chains , 2008 .

[23]  Faye Duchin.  Sustainable Consumption of Food , 2004 .

[24]  Henri Moll,et al.  Design and development of a measuring method for environmental sustainability in food production systems , 2003 .

[25]  David Pimentel,et al.  Ethanol Fuels: Energy Balance, Economics, and Environmental Impacts Are Negative , 2003 .

[26]  Gengqiang Pu,et al.  Life cycle economic analysis of fuel ethanol derived from cassava in southwest China , 2003 .

[27]  Noel D. Uri,et al.  A note on the development and use of pesticides , 1997 .

[28]  Mireille Faist,et al.  Economically extended—MFA: a material flow approach for a better understanding of food production chain , 2004 .