Purpose: The aim of this study is to identify the best Material Handling Equipment (MHE) to minimize the carbon footprint of inbound logistic activities, based on the type of the warehouse (layout, facilities and order-picking strategy) as well as the weight of the loads to be handled.Design/methodology/approach: A model to select the best environmental MHE for inbound logistic activities has been developed. Environmental performance of the MHE has been evaluated in terms of carbon Footprint (CF). The model is tested with a tool adopting a VBA macro as well as a simulation software allowing the evaluation of energy and time required by the forklift in each phase of the material handling cycle: picking, sorting and storing of the items.Findings: Nowadays, it is not possible to identify ‘a priori’ a particular engine equipped forklift performing better than others under an environmental perspective. Consistently, the application of the developed model allows to identify the best MHE tailored to each case analyzed. Originality/value: This work gives a contribution to the disagreement between environmental performances of forklifts equipped with different engines. The developed model can be considered a valid support for decision makers to identify the best MHE minimizing the carbon footprint of inbound logistic activities.

This paper aims to compare the environmental performance of two types of refractory bricks for the internal lining of ladles in secondary steelmaking, where the dissolved inclusions coming from the refractory material require fine control to obtain the target steel quality. In this context, magnesia-carbon-based refractories are largely utilized, thanks to the adequate durability of the ladle lining in terms of number of heats before re-lining, but the utilization of organic binders in the mixture (pitch, resins) arises ecological and human health concerns. Concurrently, research efforts in refractory material science look at improving the quality of steel by reducing the content of dissolved carbon due to the release from the bricks, thus focusing on different refractory materials and specifically on alumina-based materials. The European Commission funded the research project “LeanStory”, aiming to promote such new lines of refractories through the cooperation between industrial partners and scholars where different recipes are considered. In the present paper, two representative systems of the refractory types considered, magnesia-carbon and magnesia-alumina, are compared with a preliminary Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Suppliers and transports for the two product systems have been taken into account, referring to one tonne of refractory material as the functional unit for comparison. Preliminary impact results (adopting the ReCiPe Midpoint–Hierarchist perspective methodology for calculating the impact indicators) show that the new solution performs largely better almost for each indicator. Further investigations are required in order to assess the ecological performance of the two systems, considering the effective consumption of bricks for the production of steel.

The agri-food supply chain is responsible for high GHG emissions. In industrial food processing, there is potential for reducing environmental impacts. In the case of apricot jam, several practices for realizing the finished product can be adopted. If, on the one hand, the scientific literature provides detailed studies on the economic aspects of the existing practices, on the other hand, a comprehensive assessment of the most common production practices from an environmental perspective is not provided. Apricot jam production can be based on two different kinds of raw materials: fresh fruit and the so-called “semi-finished product”, which is obtained by treating fresh fruits with mechanical and thermal processes. The most extended shelf-life of the semi-finished product allows for the adoption of more flexible production practices, leading to increased production performance and ensuring more efficient transportation strategies. In environmental terms, the convenience of this approach compared to adopting fresh fruit is questionable. The aim of this paper is to compare the environmental impacts due to these two different production and transport practices of apricot jam. Consistent with this end, a Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been adopted to evaluate the environmental impact of each step in the apricot jam supply chain. Research results suggest that the use of fresh apricots in the production of jams has a lower environmental impact (about 50–65% without considering transport activities) than the use of semi-finished products, and that losses due to the short shelf-life of fresh fruit limits the transportation distance of the raw and fresh material, also depending on the transport mode adopted (in the range of 875–4450 km). This highlights the need to adopt more clean and sustainable practices in the current industrial food processes.

In the present paper, two types of magnesia-based refractory bricks for the wear lining of a steel ladle furnace are considered, with the aim of comparing their ecological performances. The adopted methodology is the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach from cradle-to-gate of the two brick product systems, in accordance with the European and International Standard EN ISO 14044:2006, and the chosen methodology for the Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is ReCiPe 2016, considering the midpoint impact categories and the hierarchist perspective. The conducted study is part of a European industrial research project aimed at investigating the possibility of cleanliness improvement of the steel produced in secondary steelmaking, by reducing the refractory contamination in the steel ladle furnace. The compared refractory bricks consist of a reference, currently used, MgO-C type and a more innovative "carbonless" one, containing magnesia and MA sintered spinel as principal components, on the basis of recipe data provided by the industrial partners of the project. The results attained so far in industrial practice are preliminary, because of the lack of a full-ladle lining experimentation, even though the application of the conceived innovative bricks in the upper part of the slag line of the ladle presents promising aspects. The results of the LCIA comparison between the two brick product systems highlight better performances for all the impact categories, except for "Human carcinogenic toxicity" and markedly for "Mineral resource scarcity." Besides these results, a general framework for shifting the ecological analysis to the steel production is provided. Calculations, referred to the production of one tonne of steel, are therefore performed, involving scenario assumptions not only regarding the refractory consumption but also the forecast operational features of the steel ladle with the "carbonless" lining. In this second set of results, it is clear how the principal contribution to almost all the impact categories is the electrical energy consumption of the ladle, while the contribution from the brick product systems remains important for the above-mentioned worsened impact categories, whose magnitude is strongly dependent on the refractory consumption.