Purpose: Environmental impact evaluation in the food sector is a key topic, due to both stricter legislations and higher consumer awareness towards sustainable choices. The case of chocolate is a remarkable example, owing to the increasing demand and the complex production process from cocoa beans to final bars. The present study aims at assessing the environmental impacts related to three chocolate types (dark, milk and white) through life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Methods: Consistent with food Product Category Rules (PCRs) and previous LCA literature, the study follows a cradle to grave approach. Among different raw material productions, it focuses above all on cocoa farming assuming three possible producer countries (i.e. Ghana, Ecuador and Indonesia), so that the influence of specific weather conditions and soil properties is underlined. Since the manufacturing step is supposed in the North Italian factory, different transport distances are also taken into account. Moreover, the work focuses on the possible use of several packaging materials and following disposal issues. In view of the open discussion about the most suitable functional unit in food sector, mass and energy amount approaches are compared. Results and discussion: Along chocolate supply chain, different phases are evaluated according to LCA methodology. Among analyzed producer countries: Indonesia monoculture case results to be the most impacting situation, due to an intensive use of agrochemicals; pesticides give a wide contribution in Ecuador, whereas Ghana is penalized by the highest water consumption. The transport of beans to manufacturing plant influences mostly the GWP, owing to long travelled distances. Considering the whole production process, cocoa derivatives and milk powder are the main contributors to every impact category. From packaging point of view, the best solution is the use of a single polypropylene layer. A sensitivity analysis is performed to check the validity of different allocation procedures: both mass and energy content allocations lead to similar results. Conclusions: Through LCA methodology, the life cycle of dark, milk and white chocolate is compared. The study assesses different potential environmental impacts, assuming mass and energy content as possible functional units and references for allocation procedures. For all combinations of functional units and allocation rules, dark chocolate globally presents the best environmental performance, whereas the other two types have similar environmental impacts.

Energy efficiency measures in buildings can provide for a significant reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A sustainable design and planning of technologies for energy production should be based on economic and environmental criteria. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used to quantify the environmental impacts over the whole cycle of life of production plants. Optimization models can support decisions that minimize costs and negative impacts. In this work, a multi-objective decision problem is formalized that takes into account LCA calculations and that minimizes costs and GHG emissions for general buildings. A decision support system (DSS) is applied to a real case study in the Northern Italy, highlighting the advantage provided by the installation of renewable energy. Moreover, a comparison among different optimal and non optimal solution was carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DSS.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a very innovative and promising solution for greenhouse gases (GHG) reduction, i.e., capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) at its source and storing it indefinitely to avoid its release to the atmosphere. This paper investigates a set of key issues in the development of specific rules for the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to CCS. The following LCA-based information are addressed in this work: definition of service type, definition of functional unit, definition of system boundaries, choice of allocation rules, choice of selected Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) results or other selected parameters for description of environmental performance. From a communication perspective, the specific rules defined in this study have been developed coherently with the requirements of a type III environment label scheme, the International EPD^® System, according to the ISO 14025 standard.

Carbon-neutral design is pivotal for achieving the future energy performance targets of buildings. This paper shows research projects that promote the environmental sustainability of university campuses at the international level. GHG accounting methods and operational strategies adopted by the University of Genoa (UNIGE), Italy, and the Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, USA, are compared, with both universities striving to make buildings and campus facilities benchmarked and carbon neutral in the near future. Our comparative research includes analyzing campus buildings at both universities and their attempts to design, retrofit, and transform these buildings into carbon neutral buildings. Two case studies were discussed: the Smart Energy Building (SEB) in the Savona Campus of the UNIGE, and the Paul L. Cejas School of Architecture (PCA) Building of the FIU. The SEB’s construction reduced emissions by about 86 tCO₂/y, whereas the PCA’s retrofitting reduced GHG emissions by 30%. Other operational strategies, including energy efficiency and energy generation, allowed the UNIGE to reduce their overall Scope 1 + 2 GHG emissions by 25% from 2013 to 2016. Globally, FIU Scope 1 + 2 GHG emissions per person were found to result in more than three times the UNIGE’s emissions, and 2.4 times if evaluated per square meter. The results were compared with GHG emissions and operational strategies from other universities.

Purpose: The packaging system plays an essential role in the logistic chain and takes into account the rise in packaging demand and consumption. A study on sustainability was carried out through a comparative life cycle assessment in order to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of plastic, corrugated board and wood (solid, MDF and particleboard) crates used for food delivery. Single-use and multi-use systems were considered and compared. Methods: According to ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, the whole life cycle of crates was divided into four primary phases: raw materials acquisition, crate manufacturing, transport (including the reuse, if applicable) and final disposal. The functional unit used for this study was 1 crate with an external dimension of 400 × 600 × 240 mm and with an inner volume of 50 l. The comparison focused on the critical parameters expected to have a higher influence on the results, such as the distances for delivery and the number of reuses for multi-use crates. All input data came from sector studies, literature and Ecoinvent database. The results were evaluated according to 8 impact categories. Two sensitivity analyses were performed. Results and discussion: The most relevant impacts are linked to transport, electricity and raw materials contributions. Cumulative energy demand results show that the renewable energy resources in the case of plastic crates are about 3% while for the other type of crates exceed the 30% reaching the 77.5% in the case of solid wood crate. The environmental impacts result lower for multi-use plastic crate due to its possibility of being reused during its lifetime, avoiding the high impacts of the manufacturing. The best option among the single-use systems is the solid wood crate. The final results of the sensitivity analysis applied to the transport distances show that the impacts related to solid wood are more stable than plastic. Concerning the end-of-life scenarios, a significant decreasing (around 14.7%) in the global warming potential can be reached increasing the crates recycling till 100%. Conclusions and recommendations: The best crate materials are plastic crates if a recovery system is planned; otherwise, the best choice is the wood crate. It is preferable to use raw material, such as solid wood than processed material, such as particle board, MDF and corrugated board. In performing this type of analysis, it is important to have accurate data, preferentially primary data, in particular for plastic crates as evidenced by the sensitivity analysis.