Carbon Footprint of Lager Beer Packaged in Different Formats

1 Cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of dried organic pasta: 2 Assessment and potential mitigation measures 3 4 5 Alessio Cimini, Matteo Cibelli, and Mauro Moresi* 6 7 Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food, and Forest Systems, 8 University of Tuscia, Via S. C. de Lellis, 01100 Viterbo, Italy 9 10 11 12 * To whom all correspondence should be addressed. 13 Tel. n°: +39-0761-357494; fax n°: +39-0761-357498; e-mail: 14 [email protected] 15 16 17 Short version of title: 18 Cradle-to-grave carbon footprint of dried organic pasta 19 1 20 ABSTRACT 21 BACKGROUND: In several Environmental Product Declarations the business- 22 to-business carbon footprint (CFCDC) of durum wheat semolina dried pasta -1 23 ranged from 0.57 to 1.72 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) kg . In this 24 work, the business-to-consumer carbon footprint (CFCG) of 1 kg of dry 25 decorticated organic durum wheat semolina pasta, as packed in 0.5-kg 26 polypropylene bags by a South Italian medium-sized pasta factory in the years 27 2016 and 2017, was assessed in compliance with the Publicly Available 28 Specification 2050 standard method. 29 RESULTS: Whereas CFCDC was mostly conditioned by the greenhouse gases -1 30 emitted throughout durum wheat cultivation (0.67 vs. 1.12 kg CO2e kg ), CFCG 31 was mainly dependent on the use and post-consume phases (0.68 vs. 1.81 kg -1 32 CO2e kg ). CFCG was more or less affected by the pasta types and packing 33 formats used, since it varied from +0.3 to +14.8% with respect to the minimum -1 34 score estimated (1.74 kg CO2e kg ), that corresponded to long goods packed in 35 3-kg bags for catering service. Once the main hotspots had been identified, 36 CFCG was stepwise reduced by resorting to a series of mitigation actions. 37 CONCLUSION: Use of more eco-sustainable cooking practices, organic durum 38 wheat kernels resulting from less impacting cultivation techniques, and 39 renewable resources to generate the thermal and electric energy needs 40 reduced CFCG by about 58% with respect to the above reference case. Finally, 41 by shifting from road to rail freight transport, and shortening the supply logistics 42 of dry pasta and grains, a further 5% reduction in CFCG was achieved. 2 43 Key words: Business-to-consumer carbon footprint; cooking phase; 44 decorticated organic durum wheat; dry organic pasta; 45 paperboard boxes, polypropylene or polyethylene bags; 46 sensitivity analysis. 47 3 48 INTRODUCTION 49 Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, popular worldwide 50 owing to its convenience, versatility, sensory and nutritional value. Its 51 consumption is recommended by Mediterranean dietary guidelines and it is 52 perceived as one of the “healthy options”. It is mainly composed of 53 carbohydrates (70% w/w) and proteins (11.5% w/w) and is considered to be a 54 slowly-digestible starchy food. 1 About 14.3 million metric tonnes of pasta are 55 annually produced worldwide, the 22.7% and 14.0% of which being produced in 56 Italy and USA, respectively. 2 The per capita consumption of pasta is maximum 57 in Italy (about 23.5 kg yr-1), followed by Tunisia (16 kg yr-1) and Venezuela (12 58 kg yr-1). 3 59 The application of life cycle assessment methodologies to basic cereals, 60 as well as their main derived products, was recently reviewed by Renzulli et al. 4 61 In the case of dry durum wheat semolina pasta, its environmental impact has 62 been assessed by several LCA studies, the great majority of which involving a 63 cradle-to-retail approach, 5-7 and just a few ones a cradle-to-grave one. 8-10 64 The agricultural phase was generally the primary hotspot, owing to the 65 enviromental impacts (i.e., climate change, eutrophication, acidification, 66 stratospheric ozone depletion potential, etc.) associated with production and 67 use of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as fuel use. The organic cultivation of 68 wheat avoids using pesticides and fertilizers of fossil origin and, thus, lessens 69 the impact of the field phase, even if this can be counterbalanced by lower crop 70 yields that result in both greater specific energy consumption for fieldwork and 71 land use. By planning a four-year crop rotation, where durum wheat cultivation 4 72 foregoes legume or fodder cultivation, it was possible to reduce not only the 73 environmental impact, but also the production costs and deoxynivalenol risk. 11 74 In addition, several Environmental Product Declarations 12-20 have been 75 published and revised so far. As shown in the electronic supplement (Table S1), 76 the estimated cradle-to-distribution centre (business-to-business) carbon 77 footprint (CFCDC) of dried durum wheat semolina pasta ranged from 0.57 to 1.7 -1 78 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) kg . The field phase contributed from 40 79 to 82% of CFCDC and thus resulted to be the main hotspot. However, when the 80 use and post-consumption waste disposal phases are accounted for, the 81 contribution of pasta consumption seemed to be highly relevant in terms of 82 energy consumption and associated impacts. 8, 11 83 The use of water associated with food and drink production and 84 consumption is currently a critical issue related to both the scarcity of drinking 85 water and resulting pollution. In particular, the fact that Italy had one of the 86 largest water footprints of the world was associated with the consumption of two 87 typical Italian foods (e.g., pasta and pizza margherita). 21 Actually, pasta 88 cooking for an average time of 10 min involves a consumption of about 10 L of 89 water and 2.3 kWh per each kg of dried pasta, respectively. 17, 22 Thus, 90 depending on the use of a gas or electric hob, further GHG emissions in the 13 18 -1 91 range of 0.6 to 3.1 kg CO2e kg , respectively, are to be accounted for. 92 Therefore, such a phase might be the most impacting one of the overall life 93 cycle of dried pasta. 94 Beyond the impact category of climate change, other impact categories, 95 such as acidification, eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, eco-toxicity and 5 96 abiotic depletion, were accounted for in such studies, 4 but rarely normalized. In 97 particular, the normalized results revealed that the most affected impact 98 categories were land use and fossil fuel, followed by respiratory inorganics and 99 climate change. 8 100 Even if all the functional units selected in the aforementioned studies were 101 mass-based and, in the great majority of cases, comprised 1 kg of dry pasta 102 differently packed, such carbon quantification exercises did not enable the 103 environmental impact of dry pasta to be directly compared, mainly because of 104 the great number of assumptions made, and different operating variables and 105 yield factors used. 106 Despite the Directorate-General for Environment of the European 107 Commission is developing a unified methodology to estimate the environmental 108 footprint of products (including carbon), based on life cycle analysis (LCA), with 109 the ultimate goal of classifying them through appropriate reference values 110 (benchmark), the current Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method has 111 been largely criticized by several stakeholders, namely academia, 23-25 industry, 112 26-27 policy-makers, 28 and consumer associations. 29 In particular, the 113 assessment of 14 different impact categories embedded in such a method 114 appeared to be quite a useless and expansive exercise with no value added 115 owing to the huge amount of reliable data needed, the excessive number of 116 decisions that are to be made, the necessity of running LCAs for every single 117 product in the portfolio, and what is more the difficulty of communicating the 118 results to environmentally-unconscious consumers, especially for the 99% EU 119 food and drink enterprises. 23 Thus, since numerous independent studies have 6 120 shown that climate change is the impact category with the lowest uncertainty 121 level, the mere assessment of the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) was 122 recommended as the most direct and economical method to allow small- and 123 medium-sized enterprises to improve their sustainability via a simple and 124 stepwise virtuous approach. 23 125 To calculate the product carbon footprint, it is crucial to rely on appropriate 126 and transparent emission factors. Unfortunately, the numerous Environmental 127 Product Declarations published so far do not report the characterization factors 128 used. This is unquestionably a critical aspect, the rule of the scientific method 129 requiring the impact category indicators to be recalculated by any researcher. 130 Only the Bilan Carbone® 30 and Australian Wine Carbon Calculator 31 131 procedures rely on specific guidebooks, where the default values of the 132 essential emission factors are listed. In this way, not only is the calculation of 133 GHG emissions for a specific food or beverage transparent, but also easy to 134 compare. 135 Based upon the data shown in the electronic supplement (Table S1), the 136 environmental performance of dried organic pasta using semolinas obtained 137 from decorticated organic durum wheat kernels has not been addressed so far. 138 Thus, the first aim of this study was to develop a life-cycle assessment model to 139 estimate the cradle-to-grave (business-to-consumer) carbon footprint (CFCG) of 140 the industrial production and distribution of dry decorticated organic durum 141 wheat semolina pasta in 0.5-kg polypropylene (PP) bags. This model complied 142 with the Publicly Available Specification 2050 standard method, 32-33 and was 143 based on transparent processing and packaging consumption yields, as well as 7 144 emission factors.

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