(1) Background: Spain, Italy, and Greece are the world’s top olive oil producers. In recent decades, these countries have gradually diversified their farming system in the olive groves. The element of innovation with respect to the state of the art is that this paper aims to compare the environmental performance of different farming systems in a European context by performing a simplified Life Cycle Assessment; (2) Methods: Environmental performance was calculated according to the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment and the “Guidance for the implementation of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)”. Average data were considered in order to describe a system with a great degree of complexity and high spatial heterogeneity; (3) Results: The study highlights the difficulty of identifying the farming method that presents the best environmental performance in each of the impact categories considered. In Greece, the lowest use of diesel, electricity, and water brings about advantages for many impact categories, albeit with low yields. While the highest olive yield obtained in Italy has positive consequences in terms of global warming, the highest use of fertilisers, in many cases, entails higher environmental impacts. On the other hand, in Spain the highest use of organo-phosphorous pesticides entails the highest impacts of eco-toxicity; (4) Conclusion: the reduction of the use of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as water conservation, are important issues which require the optimization of timing and techniques in order to achieve environmental advantages.

The scope of this chapter is to calculate the net energy of the production chain for virgin olive oil. Therefore, the determination was carried out for the direct and indirect energy inputs and the energy present as feedstock in the outputs (products and by-products). To perform this analysis, all of the production processes for olives and for oil extraction were studied. For the agricultural phase, three systems of cultivation were taken into consideration: the centenary olive grove (COO), the “intensive” olive grove (HDO) and, the more recently introduced, “super-intensive” olive grove (HSDO). The last two models are distinguished by the high number of trees per hectare and by an intense mechanization of agricultural practices. Regarding the oil extraction phase, four different technologies were compared: the pressure system (PS), the two-phase system (2PS), the three-phase (3PS), and the system, called “de-pitted”, which provides for the separation of the pits before the oil is extracted (DPS). The analysis showed that the production of olives needs more than 90% of energy requirements, much of which is met by non-renewable sources of energy. The production of fertilizers, and also irrigation, are the production factors that require a considerable amount of energy. Among the three agricultural systems analyzed, the COO system of cultivation is the one that requires less energy as compared to the other systems. The scenario that enables the most energy return, however, is the SHDO system of cultivation, due to the greater amount of pruning residues that can be obtained.

Purpose: This study examines the relationships between the sizes of Coop Alleanza 3.0 retail outlets and indicators (in value) of surplus food (SF), real food donation (FD) and potential food waste (FW) from 2013 to 2019.Design/methodology/approach: Retail outlets were grouped by size class and geographic macro-area. The authors adopt a procedure composed of Kendall's tau-b coefficient with ties (ttest) and the coefficient of determination (R²). The authors studied bread, pastries, fruits and vegetables as representative food categories.Findings: Among the hypermarket group (Emilia-Romagna Region and those in group with Apulia Region), the study found the t-test with many high negative relationship and related R² high. Results showed that size significantly influenced the trends of the indicators for the food categories analyzed. This allowed the authors to hypothesize the presence of inefficiencies in these groups.Originality/value: From a practical point of view, the procedure can provide Coop Alleanza 3.0, with a dashboard to analyze surplus food management (SFM) progress within its retail groups. This can provide a warning signal (WS) to trigger a management control system. If necessary, it can lead to corrective measures, such as internal optimization, by adopting appropriate work procedures. In this sense, the procedure is scalable and transferable at the international middle and micro-scales. This approach facilitates the transition to a retail circular economy transition.

The case studies of Germany, Italy, and the UK show that liberalization has had positive direct effects on productivity in services, but does not always result in declining prices and employment gains. Liberalization seems to have positive effects on productivity, which — almost invariably because excessively high levels of employment are reduced — increases in all cases where its measurement is possible and reliable. Productivity may even increase well before privatization and liberalization, in anticipation of an increasingly competitive environment.