In the Mediterranean region, climate change is likely to generate an increase in water demand and the deterioration of its quality. The adoption of precision viticulture and the best available techniques aiming at sustainable production, minimizing the impact on natural resources and reducing production costs, has therefore been a goal of winegrowers. In this work, the water footprint (WFP) in the wine sector was evaluated, from the vineyard to the bottle, through the implementation of a methodology based on field experiments and life cycle assessment (LCA) on two Portuguese case studies. Regarding direct water footprint, it ranged from 366 to 899 L/FU (0.75 L bottle), with green water being the most significant component, representing more than 50% of the overall water footprint. The approach used in the current study revealed that although more than 97.5% of the water footprint is associated with vineyard, the winery stage is responsible for more than 75% of the global warming potential indicator. A linear correlation between the carbon footprint and the indirect blue water footprint was also observed for both case studies. Climate change is expected to cause an earlier and prolonged water stress period, resulting in an increase of about 40% to 82% of blue WFP.

The beef supply chain has multiple negative impacts on the environment. A method widely used to measure impacts from both the use of resources and the emissions generated by this sector is the life cycle assessment (LCA) (ISO 14040). This study aimed to evaluate a semi-intensive system (SIS) and an extensive organic system (EOS), combined with two different slaughterhouses located in the northeast of Portugal. The studied slaughterhouses are similar in size but differ in number of slaughters and in sources of thermal energy: natural gas (Mng) vs. biomass pellets (Mp). Four categories of environmental impact were evaluated: global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), eutrophication potential (EP), and photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP). As expected, higher impacts were found for SIS for all studied impact categories. Slaughterhouse activities, fertilizer production, and solid waste treatment stages showed little contribution when compared to animal production. Concerning the slaughterhouses activities, the main sources of environmental impact were the use of energy (electric and thermal) and by-products transportation.

The sustainability of meat production systems has been highlighted by the impact on the environment and the conservation of natural resources. The aim of this manuscript is to provide a specific review of the environmental sustainability of beef production in a life cycle assessment (LCA) context. Questions about the main environmental impacts caused by beef production were discussed. The phases of the LCA were detailed as well as the main functional units, boundaries of the systems and categories of impacts used in recent studies. LCA is a fast, easy and intuitive method that correlates human activities and their environmental performance in different sectors, such as beef production.