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The integration of qualitative techniques and a multicriteria in sLCA allows catching local specificities by involving local experts and stakeholders Results highlighted that impact categories mostly contributed to performance differences Public deciders can be supported in deciding which farming practices should be encouraged, which social domains must be paid more attention, and where social problems mostly occur The methodological application allowed the authors also to foresee the feasibility of the integration of LCA and LCC results as inputs in sLCA to conduct a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA).

Abstract:The wine sector is going through a significant evolution dealing with the challenges of competition issues in international markets and with necessary commitments to sustainability improvement. In the wine supply chain, the agricultural phase represents a potential source of pollution and costs. From the farmers' point of view, these contexts require them to be more attentive and find a compromise among environmental benefits, economic benefits, and costs linked to farming practices. This paper aims to make a sustainability assessment of different wine-growing scenarios located in Calabria (Southern Italy) that combines conflicting insights, i.e., environmental and economic ones, by applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to identify the main hotspots and select the alternative scenarios closest to the ideal solution through the VIKOR multicriteria method. In particular, the latter allowed us to obtain synthetic indices for a two-dimensional sustainability assessment. Conventional practices associated to the espalier training system represent the best compromise from both environmental and economic points of view, due to the higher yield per hectare. The choices regarding Functional Unit (FU) and indicators were shown to have a high influence on results.

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Guar (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L.) is a spring-summer legume with a high drought tolerance, grown mainly in India, Pakistan, United States and South Africa, whose seeds contain galactomannans. These can be used as an emollient, softening or thickening agent, a flocculant, as well as in hydraulic fracturing, and as a stabiliser in a wide range of other industrial activities: the production of cosmetics, paper, textiles, paints and varnishes, detergents, in construction, and in food products (jams, jellies, yogurt, mayonnaise, ketchup, diet foods, foods for coeliacs, etc.). In the light of a growing industrial demand for guar flour, in May 2012 a trial was carried out in southern Italy. Seeds from South Africa were sown in large plots on two farms with different soil characteristics. The crop showed yields varying between 1.8 and 2.2 t ha -1 . Agronomic results were then used to conduct an integrated sustainability analysis using the production cost analysis and the life cycle assessment, in order to assess, respectively, the cost-effectiveness and the environmental impact of the production process of guar in a Mediterranean environment. Compared to other competitive crops, guar, with less than 3000 kg of CO2 eq. emissions, can be considered as a low-emission crop. Given the above-mentioned yield, guar growing is economically sustainable when the purchase price of seeds is not less than 0.96 € kg -1 .

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