LCA of an Italian lager beer

Cordella, Mauro; Tugnoli, Alessandro; Spadoni, Gigliola; Santarelli, Francesco; Zangrando, T.

doi:10.1065/lca2007.02.306

Cited by 88 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Packaging is one of the areas most intensively studied within the field of LCA and plays an especially important role in the case of food consumption (e.g., Hischier et al 2005;Cordella et al 2008;Mourad et al 2008). However, most of the studies to date focus on inventory with few performing full impact assessment analysis or extensive uncertainty analysis.…”

Section: Current Issues With Lca Of Packagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of two baby food packaging alternatives: glass jars vs. plastic pots

Humbert

Rossi

Margni

et al. 2009

Int J Life Cycle Assess

182

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Background, aim, and scope This paper compares the life cycle assessment (LCA) of two packaging alternatives used for baby food produced by Nestlé: plastic pot and glass jar. The study considers the environmental impacts associated with packaging systems used to provide one baby food meal in France, Spain, and Germany in 2007. In addition, alternate logistical scenarios are considered which are independent of the two packaging options. The 200-g packaging size is selected as the basis for this study. Two other packaging sizes are assessed in the sensitivity analysis. Because results are intended to be disclosed to the public, this study underwent a critical review by an external panel of LCA experts. Materials and methods The LCA is performed in accordance to the international standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. The packaging systems include the packaging production, the product assembly, the preservation process, the distribution, and the packaging end-of-life. The production of the content (before preservation process), as well as the use phase are not taken into account as they are considered not to change when changing packaging. The inventory is based on data obtained from the baby food producer and the suppliers, data from the scientific literature, and data from the ecoinvent database. Special care is taken to implement a system expansion approach for end-of-life open and closed loop recycling and energy production (ISO 14044). A comprehensive impact assessment is performed using two life cycle impact assessment methodologies: IMPACT 2002+ and CML 2001. An extensive uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo as well as an extensive sensitivity study are performed on the inventory and the reference flows, respectively. Results When looking at the impacts due to preservation process and packaging (considering identical distribution distances), we observe a small but significant environmental benefit of the plastic pot system over the glass jar system. Depending on the country, the impact is reduced by 14% to 27% for primary energy, 28% to 31% for global warming, 31% to 34% for respiratory inorganics, and 28% to 31% for terrestrial acidification/nutrification. The environmental benefit associated with the change in packaging mainly results from (a) production of plastic pot (including its end-of-life; 43% to 51% of total benefit), (b) lighter weight of packaging positively impacting transportation (20% to 35% of total benefit), and (c) new preservation process permitted by the plastic system (23% to 34% of total benefit). The jar or pot (including cap or lid, cluster, stretch film, and label) represents approximately half of the life cycle impacts, the logistics approximately one fourth, and the rest (especially on-site energy, tray, and hood) one fourth. Discussion The sensitivity analysis shows that assumptions made in the basic scenarios are rather conservative for plastic pots and that the conclusions for the 200-g packaging size also apply to other packaging sizes. The uncertainty analysis performed ...

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Section: Current Issues With Lca Of Packagingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle assessment of two baby food packaging alternatives: glass jars vs. plastic pots

Humbert

Rossi

Margni

et al. 2009

Int J Life Cycle Assess

182

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“…There are several studies of life cycle environmental impacts of beer produced in different countries, including Australia (Narayanaswamy et al 2004), Greece (Koroneos et al 2005), Italy (Cordella et al 2008), Spain (Hospido et al 2005), Japan (Takamoto et al 2004) and USA (Climate Conservancy 2008). Some studies considered beer production in whole regions, including the Nordic countries (Talve 2001), Europe and North America (BIER 2012).…”

Section: Responsible Editor: Almudena Hospidomentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle environmental impacts and costs of beer production and consumption in the UK

Amienyo

Azapagic

2016

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose Global beer consumption is growing steadily and has recently reached 187.37 billion litres per year. The UK ranked 8th in the world, with 4.5 billion litres of beer produced annually. This paper considers life cycle environmental impacts and costs of beer production and consumption in the UK which are currently unknown. The analysis is carried out for two functional units: (i) production and consumption of 1 l of beer at home and (ii) annual production and consumption of beer in the UK. The system boundary is from cradle to grave. Methods Life cycle impacts have been estimated following the guidelines in ISO 14040/44; the methodology for life cycle costing is congruent with the LCA approach. Primary data have been obtained from a beer manufacturer; secondary data are sourced from the CCaLC, Ecoinvent and GaBi databases. GaBi 4.3 has been used for LCA modelling and the environmental impacts have been estimated according to the CML 2001 method. Results and discussion Depending on the type of packaging (glass bottles, aluminium and steel cans), 1 l of beer requires for example 10.3-17.5 MJ of primary energy and 41.2-41.8 l of water, emits 510-842 g of CO 2 eq. and has the life cycle costs of 12.72-14.37 pence. Extrapolating the results to the annual consumption of beer in the UK translates to a primary energy demand of over 49,600 TJ (0.56 % of UK primary energy consumption), water consumption of 1.85 bn hl (5.3 % of UK demand), emissions of 2.16 mt CO 2 eq. (0.85 % of UK emissions) and the life cycle costs of £553 million (3.2 % of UK beer market value). Production of raw materials is the main hotspot, contributing from 47 to 63 % to the impacts and 67 % to the life cycle costs. The packaging adds 19 to 46 % to the impacts and 13 % to the costs. Conclusions Beer in steel cans has the lowest impacts for five out of 12 impact categories considered: primary energy demand, depletion of abiotic resources, acidification, marine and freshwater toxicity. Bottled beer is the worst option for nine impact categories, including global warming and primary energy demand, but it has the lowest human toxicity potential. Beer in aluminium cans is the best option for ozone layer depletion and photochemical smog but has the highest human and marine toxicity potentials.

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“…Extensive work in the application of LCA for aluminium cans has been performed by both the aluminium industry (e.g. Stichling and NguyenNgoc 2009;EAA 2013), as well as by beer and packaging manufacturers companies, either for comparing the environmental performances of different packaging (Cordella et al 2008;Detzel and Mönckert 2009) or to identify the hotspot in beer production (Talve 2001;Koroneos et al 2005). The most effective solution for reducing the environmental impacts of beer packed in aluminium cans pointed by LCA studies is an increase in collection rate (Detzel and Mönckert 2009;Stichling and Nguyen-Ngoc 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Circular economy: To be or not to be in a closed product loop? A Life Cycle Assessment of aluminium cans with inclusion of alloying elements

Niero

Olsen

2016

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

131

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Abstract:Packaging, representing the second largest source of aluminium scrap at global level, deserves a key role in the transition towards the circular economy. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of aluminium products has been typically based on one life cycle considering pure aluminium flows and neglecting the presence of alloying elements and impurities. However, this simplification undermines the potentials of using LCA to quantify the environmental performances of products in multiple loops, as required in the circular economy. This study aims to investigate the effects of including the actual alloy composition in the LCA of aluminium can production and recycling, in order to understand whether a can-to-can (i.e. closed product loop) recycling should be promoted or not. Mass balance of the main alloying elements (Mn, Si, Cu, Fe) was carried out at increasing levels of recycling rate, corresponding to a temporal interval of five years. Different aluminium packaging scrap sources were considered: mixed packaging aluminium scrap and used beverage can scrap.The outcomes of the mass balance were used to quantify the amount of Mn and primary Al that needs to be reintegrated in each scenario according to the recycling rate and this information was further used to perform an LCA of 30 loops of aluminium can production and recycling, based on the actual alloy composition. The LCA revealed that the closed product loop option (considering used beverage can scrap) has lower climate change impacts over the other recycling scenario using mixed Al packaging scrap. The main recommendation from an LCA methodological point of view is to include the idea of multiple co-functions in the functional unit definition. To further improve the environmental performances of the aluminium beverage can sector towards circular economy implementation the key actions are: to reduce the weight of the lid, to develop methods to separate the body and lid at the point of collection, and to investigate the potentials of a closed supply chain loop for aluminium cans in terms of combined environmental and economic value creation.

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LCA of an Italian lager beer

Cited by 88 publications

References 10 publications

Life cycle assessment of two baby food packaging alternatives: glass jars vs. plastic pots

Life cycle assessment of two baby food packaging alternatives: glass jars vs. plastic pots

Life cycle environmental impacts and costs of beer production and consumption in the UK

Circular economy: To be or not to be in a closed product loop? A Life Cycle Assessment of aluminium cans with inclusion of alloying elements

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