Environmental analysis of a cotton yarn supply chain

Bevilacqua, Maurizio; Ciarapica, Filippo Emanuele; Mazzuto, Giovanni; Paciarotti, Claudia

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.06.082

Cited by 100 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The author cautions that modifying a specific production step based on information for only one impact category can bring about negative consequences for other impact categories and other steps of the system. When applied to agriculture, many LCA studies draw boundaries or focus around a single crop or its (co-)product(s) (Bevilacqua et al 2014;Hedayati et al 2019). Thus, since the focus of these studies is on one cropping cycle, important interactions across crops and over years within crop rotations may be neglected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representing crop rotations in life cycle assessment: a review of legume LCA studies

Costa

Chadwick

Saget

et al. 2020

Int J Life Cycle Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose There is an imperative to accurately assess the environmental sustainability of crop system interventions in the context of food security and climate change. Previous studies have indicated that the incorporation of legumes into cereal rotations could reduce overall environmental burdens from cropping systems. However, most life cycle assessment (LCA) studies focus on individual crops and miss environmental consequences of inter-annual crop sequence and nutrient cycling effects. This review investigates state-of-the-art representation of inter-crop rotation effects within legume LCA studies. Methods A literature review was undertaken, starting with a search for all peer-reviewed articles with combinations of ‘LCA’, ‘legumes’ and ‘rotations’ or synonyms thereof. In total, 3180 articles were obtained. Articles were screened for compliance with all of the following requirements: (i) reporting results based on LCA or life cycle inventory methodology; (ii) inclusion of (a) legume(s); (iii) the legume(s) is/are analysed within the context of a wider cropping system (i.e. rotation or intercropping). Seventy articles satisfying these requirements were analysed. Results and discussion We identified three broad approaches to legume LCA. Most studies involved simple attributional LCA disregarding important interactions across years and crops in rotations. N-fertilizer reduction through legume residue N carryover is either disregarded or the benefit is attributed to the following crop in such studies, whilst N leaching burdens from residues are usually attributed to the legume crop. Some studies applied robust allocation approaches and/or complex functional units to enable analysis of entire rotation sequences, accounting for nutrient cycling and break crop effects. Finally, a few studies applied consequential LCA to identify downstream substitution effects, though these studies did not simultaneously account for agronomic effects of rotational sequence changes. Conclusions We recommend that LCA studies for legume cropping systems should (i) evaluate entire rotations; (ii) represent nitrogen and ideally carbon cycling; (iii) for attributional studies, define at least two functional units, where one should encompass the multifunctional outputs of an entire rotation and the other should enable product footprints to be calculated; (iv) for CLCA studies, account for both agronomic changes in rotations and markets effects; (v) include impact categories that reflect hotspots for agricultural production.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representing crop rotations in life cycle assessment: a review of legume LCA studies

Costa

Chadwick

Saget

et al. 2020

Int J Life Cycle Assess

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Cotton is a dominant fiber accounting for a significant portion of textiles used within the apparel industry (Krifa and Stewart Stevens, 2016). Cotton is associated with adverse environmental impacts because its cultivation can require the large-scale use of pesticides and it is a water-intensive crop (Bevilacqua et al, 2014). This means that cotton production can severely degrade natural ecosystems.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle and End-of-Life management options in the footwear industry: A review

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is well recognized globally that the footwear industry contributes to a large waste stream throughout its life cycle. This article reviews the literature pertaining to the life cycle of footwear products and their End-of-Life (EoL) management strategies. The review discusses critical aspects of the footwear industry, commencing with a background on the growth and consumption of footwear products across the globe. The review provides an overview of the environmental impacts of different footwear materials across their life cycles. In this regard, leather materials are given intense focus due to their poor environmental performance. The review further examines proactive and reactive approaches to footwear waste management, whilst additionally exploring the challenges facing EoL footwear recovery. Finally, pyrolysis is examined as a thermochemical treatment process with value due to its potential to recover materials from post-consumer footwear. The significant findings in this review paper are as follows: (a) leather footwear materials have the most detrimental environmental impacts across their life cycle; (b) there is limited scientific literature on thermochemical processes (particularly pyrolysis) as waste recovery options for post-consumer footwear; and (c) several challenges face the recovery of post-consumer footwear products, including inefficient reverse logistics, mixed product recycling and difficulties establishing a value recovery chain. This review paper recommends further research on pyrolysis as a potential post-consumer footwear recovery option. Exploring the viability of new avenues for footwear waste recovery is significant due to its potential to divert this waste stream from landfills and allow a progression toward a more circular economy.

show abstract

“…Diversos estudios se han desarrollado en torno a la valoración de los impactos ambientales en la producción de algodón a nivel mundial mediante diferentes metodologías de análisis. Bevilacqua et al (2014) presentan diversos escenarios para la fabricación de la hilatura de algodón, en donde la productividad de estos modifica el valor del impacto ambiental, pues los mayores impactos son generados en la etapa de blanqueado e hilado, con valores iguales a 1.24 kgCO2-eq y 0.64 kgCO2-eq, respectivamente. Mientras otros autores como Murugesh & Selvadass (2013a) y PE Iinternational AG (2014) centran sus estudios solo en la etapa de cultivo del algodón.…”

Section: Análisis De Ciclo De Vida Como Herramienta Para La Valoracióunclassified

“…El riego por goteo puede reducir la cantidad de agua utilizada por al menos 30 % en comparación con los sistemas de inundación o surcos más eficientes, y es probable que sea mucho más alta en comparación con muchos sistemas de inundación o surcos que funcionan mal (Bevilacqua et al, 2014), por lo que supone una disminución de 2000 m 3 /ha, quedando en una cantidad de 4500 m 3 /ha. El consumo energético en los procesos se puede reducir según algunos fabricantes de maquinaria textil en un 10 % para cada unidad, por lo cual en cada una de las etapas que se usan energía se disminuirá este valor (Bevilacqua et al, 2014). La Tabla 5 ilustra la comparación de los valores de entradas y salidas con y sin mejoras, para facilitar la interpretación del porcentaje de dichas mejores.…”

Section: Mejorasunclassified

Minimización de impactos a través de la optimización del ciclo de vida de la tela de algodón

Cuasapud-Belarcazar¹,

Henao-Duque²,

Rodríguez-Gómez³

et al. 2019

Rev. Fac. Cienc.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Artículo Investigación RESUMEN: El algodón es la fibra natural más importante del mundo textil (principal insumo), mundialmente representa unos de los productos básicos en la economía de más de 100 países, aproximadamente 150 países lo exportan o importan, sin embargo, su cultivo se considera como uno de los más intensivos en la actualidad, puesto que requiere grandes cantidades de agua, pesticidas y fertilizantes, generando importantes impactos al medio ambiente, entre los más relevantes están: daño a la salud humana, daño a los ecosistemas y daño a la disponibilidad de recursos; además, se contemplan los impactos que genera el proceso que se requiere para la producción de la tela de algodón. Para la minimización de los impactos de la cadena productiva de la tela de algodón se realiza un análisis del ciclo de vida consecuencial al proceso de cuna a puerta usando el software Umberto NTX LCA y la metodología ReCiPe con información secundaria. La categoría más impactada es: disponibilidad de recursos no renovables, esta categoría presenta un impacto de 212.14 puntos con una diferencia de 84.3 puntos respecto a la categoría de menor impacto (calidad de ecosistema, 127.84 puntos); debido a la energía que requiere la maquinaria para su funcionamiento; la segunda más impactada es salud humana con impactos por formación de material particulado (47.57 puntos) y toxicidad humana (29.17 puntos). Con las mejoras realizadas al proceso se tiene una reducción de 53.01 puntos con 25.06, 18.2 y 9.75 de mejora en las categorías recursos, salud humana y calidad del ecosistema, respectivamente.

show abstract

Environmental analysis of a cotton yarn supply chain

Cited by 100 publications

References 15 publications

Representing crop rotations in life cycle assessment: a review of legume LCA studies

Representing crop rotations in life cycle assessment: a review of legume LCA studies

Life cycle and End-of-Life management options in the footwear industry: A review

Minimización de impactos a través de la optimización del ciclo de vida de la tela de algodón

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About