Assessment of carbon footprint and energy performance of the extra virgin olive oil chain in Umbria, Italy

Intensification in Olive Growing Reduces Global Warming Potential under Both Integrated and Organic Farming

The relationship between agriculture and climate change is gaining prominence year by year in due to both adaptation and mitigation issues, because agriculture contributes to carbon emissions and acts as a carbon sink. Innovation on olive growing may help improve production systems for a more sustainable agriculture. In recent years, the olive sector is shifting towards intensification via a new growing system implementation with a strong economic impact. Indeed, the olive-growing systems are moving from low-density (<250 trees/ha) to medium-density (300–500 trees/ha), and mostly to super-high-density (>1200 trees/ha) systems. The aims of the present study were to compare these different olive-growing systems, managed by both integrated and organic farming, and to assess the effects of different agricultural practices on global warming potential (GWP), referring to one hectare and to one ton of olives as functional units. For both functional units and for all olive-growing systems, in the organic farming method, there is a greater environmental impact compared to integrated farming because of the higher number of mechanical operations (e.g., for weed control) in the former. The super-high-density growing system exhibited a lower GWP, considering both one hectare and one ton for both farming methods.

Cereal and Confectionary Packaging: Assessment of Sustainability and Environmental Impact with a Special Focus on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The usefulness of food packaging is often questioned in the public debate about (ecological) sustainability. While worldwide packaging-related CO2 emissions are accountable for approximately 5% of emissions, specific packaging solutions can reach significantly higher values depending on use case and product group. Unlike other groups, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and life cycle assessment (LCA) of cereal and confectionary products have not been the focus of comprehensive reviews so far. Consequently, the present review first contextualizes packaging, sustainability and related LCA methods and then depicts how cereal and confectionary packaging has been presented in different LCA studies. The results reveal that only a few studies sufficiently include (primary, secondary and tertiary) packaging in LCAs and when they do, the focus is mainly on the direct (e.g., material used) rather than indirect environmental impacts (e.g., food losses and waste) of the like. In addition, it is shown that the packaging of cereals and confectionary contributes on average 9.18% to GHG emissions of the entire food packaging system. Finally, recommendations on how to improve packaging sustainability, how to better include packaging in LCAs and how to reflect this in management-related activities are displayed.

Bibliometric Mapping of Research on Life Cycle Assessment of Olive Oil Supply Chain

The olive oil supply chain and even its individual stages have been extensively investigated through life cycle assessment (LCA) in recent decades. Most practices of the olive oil supply chain have been associated with negative environmental effects, such as soil degradation, carbon dioxide emissions, air and ground pollution, and depletion of groundwater. The current work aimed to perform a bibliometric analysis, through a science mapping approach, coupled with a review on the life cycle assessment (LCA) studies of the olive oil sector, with relevance to the environmental impacts of agricultural and industrial practices of this food sector. A total of 110 documents published in 2008–2021 were analyzed and discussed. More than 78% of documents were released from 2015. The main Scopus categories relating to the topic analyzed were environmental sciences (25%), energy (18%), and engineering (17%). The most productive countries were Italy, Spain, and Greece. The cluster analysis identified three main research topics related to the “agricultural phase”, “oil extraction”, and “waste management and by-product valorization”. Most of the recent publications focused on the application of LCA to evaluate the environmental impact of innovative agricultural practices, sustainable control of parasites and weeds, wastes, and by-products valorization within a circular economy.

A Review on Life Cycle Assessment of the Olive Oil Production

Olive oil is one of the most globally recognized high-value products, with 4 million hectares cultivated in the Mediterranean area. The production process involves many stages: farming, extraction, packing, and waste treatment. Each one of these stages should present critical points for the environmental impacts, and for this reason, the entire sector is adopting mitigation strategies to begin to be more sustainable. The mitigation actions’ efficiency should be evaluated through environmental indicators or environmental impact assessment by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This review aimed to carry out an overview of recent papers (2011–2021) involving an LCA study in the olive oil supply chain by giving a framework of what is included in LCA studies and highlighting the main contributors to environmental impacts. The main scholarly literature databases have been exploited, highlighting a great increase in publications, especially from the producer countries. The review results reflect the heterogeneity of the production process. However, the use of pesticides, fertilizers, water, and fuel for machinery heavily weigh on the farming stage’s environmental impact. Finally, special focus was given to key elements of LCA studies in the olive oil supply chain, such as functional unit, system boundaries, impact categories, calculation method, and software widely used.

Life cycle assessment, C footprint and carbon balance of virgin olive oils production from traditional and intensive olive groves in southern Spain

Olive oil production shapes the socio-economic and environmental life of many areas of the Mediterranean basin, especially southern Spain, the highest olive oil-producing region worldwide. Olive grove cultivation is tending to intensify from traditional low-density to intensive and high-density cropping systems, which might result in higher environmental impacts. The aim of this study is to estimate the environmental impacts, carbon (C) footprint and carbon balance of producing virgin origin olive oil in Spain from four traditional rainfed, four irrigated, and three intensive olive farms, including the processing phase. Environmental impacts of producing 1 kg of unpacked virgin olive oil at the farm and industrial phases were quantified with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool and a "cradle-to-gate" approach using data from surveys at these farms and 12 olive oil mills. On average, the farming phase accounted for 76.3% of the EIs. Therefore, to reduce the impact of the virgin olive oils production, most of the efforts should be made especially in the farming phase. Despite the high variability between seasons and between independent replicates of the same farming system, intensive farming had significant higher impacts on most environmental impact categories than traditional rainfed farming, mainly due to the application of nitrogen fertilizer, plant protection products and herbicides. In terms of climate change, the environmental impact of the functional unit is in the ranges of 1.80-2.41, 1.59-2.78 and 2.28-3.26 kg of CO₂ eq. for traditional rainfed, irrigated and intensive, respectively. C footprint was negative and averaged -5.5, -4.3 and -2.7 kg CO₂ eq. Olive groves are efficient atmospheric CO₂ sinks mainly by fixing CO₂ into permanent and non-permanent trees structures. The lower intensification of the traditional rainfed groves contributed more in mitigating the increase of atmospheric CO₂. Finally, the C footprint and C balance are negative, especially in traditional irrigated and intensive farming. The application of organic sources of fertilizer and the implementation of temporary spontaneous cover crops, both technically and economically feasible, are sound strategies to achieve a positive carbon balance and reduce the impacts of olive cultivation.

Benchmarking of carbon footprint data from the Italian wine sector: A comprehensive and extended analysis

The interest in sustainability, within the wine sector, is growing simultaneously with the awareness of the environmental impacts on climate change generated by the sector itself. In this context, environmental methodologies need to be applied: Carbon Footprint of a Product (CFP) is a quantitative expression of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions that plays an influent role in emission management and evaluation of mitigation measures over the full life cycle of a product. Moreover, CFP application in the agri-food sector remains scarce due to complex, expensive, and difficult data collection. This paper aims to determine the main factors that contribute to the CFP of 33 Italian wines from 16 wineries and compare and evaluate the results obtained using all the inventory data or results obtained using a simplified model with fewer inputs. The results per Function Unit (0.75/ L of wine) have been obtained using a unique methodology. Considering system boundaries from cradle to grave, at 90% confidence interval, CFP results ranged between 0.899 kg CO₂ eq./FU and 1.882 kg CO₂ eq./FU. The study underlines that most of the impacts can be related to few inventory data, in fact the main contributors of GHGs emissions are: glass bottle (29%), electricity used in the winery stage (14%), transport and distribution of the final product (13%), heat used in the winery phase (9%) and fossil fuels used in vineyard (8%). The results can be helpful to support the development of a simplified CFP and to obtain a benchmark for the CFP of the Italian wine sector. Furthermore, the present study can help businesses, policy makers and consumers in making decisions that lead to a better environmental outcome.

Life Cycle Assessment of Olive Pomace as a Reinforcement in Polypropylene and Polyethylene Biocomposite Materials: A New Perspective for the Valorization of This Agricultural By-Product

The main environmental impact of olive oil production is the disposal of residues such as pomace and water vegetation. During the olive oil extraction process, the olive stone is milled and discharged within the olive pomace. However, olive stone flour can be valorized as filler for polymeric composites. A life cycle assessment of the olive pomace valorization was carried out by focusing on the manufacturing process of a biocomposite made of two different thermoplastic matrices, i.e., polyethylene and polypropylene. The functional unit is the production of 1 m2 of a lath made of an olive pomace-based biocomposite. The analysis was carried out with the SimaPro PhD 9.1.1.1 software, and the database used for the modeling was Ecoinvent 3.6. The obtained results reveal that the hotspot of the whole process is the twin-screw compounding of the olive stone fraction, with the polymeric matrix and coupling agent, and that human health is the most affected damage category. It represents 89% for both scenarios studied: olive stone fraction/polypropylene (OSF/PP) and olive stone fraction/polyethylene (OSF/PE). Further research directions include the use of biosourced polymer matrices, which could reduce the impact of olive pomace-based composite manufacturing.

Sustainability Certification, a New Path of Value Creation in the Olive Oil Sector: The ITALIAN Case Study

The Italian extra virgin olive oil supply chain has considerable potential for embarking on a path of sustainable development and evolution. In Italy, the great variety heritage and the different pedo-climatic characteristics result in local olive growing systems with different management techniques, producing extra virgin olive oils that are strictly entwined to the territory, with peculiar qualitative properties. Nevertheless, numerous criticalities have been traditionally eroding the competitiveness of Italian olive growing that could find in sustainability certifications, a lasting driver of value creation. Shared standardizations and certifications that include the three pillars of sustainability are therefore necessary for the development of the process.

Unraveling the environmental impacts of bioactive compounds and organic amendment from grape marc

In a society that produces large amounts of solid waste, the search for new methods of valorisation has led to the development of techniques that make it possible to obtain new products from waste. In the case of bio-waste, biological treatment such as anaerobic digestion or composting appear to be suitable options for producing bio-energy or bio-fertilizers respectively. Vermicomposting is a method of converting solid organic waste into resources through bio-oxidation and stabilization of the organic waste by earthworms. The purpose of this study is to establish the environmental impacts of a complete route for the valorisation of grape pomace in order to identify environmental hotspots. In this valorisation route, different value-added products are produced with potential application in the cosmetic, food and pharmaceutical sectors. Priority was given to the use of primary data in the elaboration of the data inventories needed to perform the life cycle assessment (LCA). The main findings from this study reported that the energy requirement of the distillation process is an important hot spot of the process. Although the valorisation route has some poor results in terms of the two environmental indicators (carbon footprint and normalised impact index), when economic revenues were included in this analysis, its environmental performance was better than that of other alternatives for bio-waste recovery.

An Italian Innovative Small-Scale Approach to Promote the Conscious Consumption of Healthy Food

An unhealthy diet is considered to be one of the main causes for increases in obesity and chronic diseases. Food choices are frequently influenced by food systems and environments along with the availability and affordability of healthy and sustainable food. In this context, a major contemporary challenge lies in improving these aspects in order to support healthy dietary choices. Hence, to address this issue, here, we propose a small-scale approach called SANI (Italian for “healthy”) which involves experts in science and marketing. Two typical agri-foods of the Abruzzo area (center of Italy), tomato sauce and extra virgin olive oil, are characterized as high-quality products in terms of their nutrient content, absence of chemical contaminants (chromatographic, spectrophotometric, and magnetic resonance techniques), and ecological footprint (lifecycle assessment and carbon footprint). Hence, their consumption is promoted, with strict attention being paid to several aspects of the food system, such as production, processing, distribution, labeling, and promotion, as well as marketing strategies and dissemination activities. Overall, these SANI actions, especially labeling and dissemination, have proven to be a valuable learning tool for consumers moving toward more conscious consumption, which can be extended and applied to additional food products. Future applications of similar research strategies in a wider context could positively affect human and environmental health.

A Life Cycle Perspective to Assess the Environmental and Economic Impacts of Innovative Technologies in Extra Virgin Olive Oil Extraction

Advances in the adoption of technological innovations represent a great driver to improve the competitiveness of the Italian extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) industry. This work assesses the efficiency of an innovative extraction plant (with low oxidative impact, heating of paste before malaxation and a special decanter that avoids the final vertical centrifugation) in terms of oil yield and quality, and economic and environmental impacts. Economic and environmental impacts were evaluated by using both life cycle costing and life cycle assessment methodologies. A sensitivity analysis was also performed to highlight the uncertain factors that may strongly affect the results. Findings showed that olive milling with the innovative plant resulted in olive oil with a significant increase in quality, although the extraction yield was significantly higher when using conventional technology. In terms of environmental results, an average growth of 4.5% of the impacts in all categories was reached. The economic results revealed the highest extraction cost for the innovative scenario as well as the lower profitability, although a positive return in investment feasibility can be achieved due to an increase in the olive oil selling price. These findings could be useful to highlight the main hotspots in EVOO production and to suggest improvements for more sustainable management.

Life cycle assessment of olive oil: A case study in southern Italy

The paper describes the results of a specific LCA based analysis of the production of olive oil in the region of Calabria, in southern Italy. The goal of the study is to assess the energy and environmental impacts of different scenarios involving conventional and organic cultivations, plains and hills cultivations and involving different operating techniques. The study also aims at assessing the share of each life cycle step on the total of energy and environmental impacts. The functional unit chosen for the comparative analysis is a glass bottle of 0.75 L of extra virgin olive oil. A "from cradle to gate" perspective was chosen. The analysis was developed according to the LCA standards of the ISO 14040 series. The analysis is based on a field analysis developed in the last years in the province of Reggio Calabria between more than 50 enterprises and stakeholders of the field, representative of the whole Calabria region and of most southern Italy. The data used for the development of mass and energy balances are related to the years 2013-2015. The results clarify that for all indicators that the first part of the life cycle - from the production, including the growth of the olive plant to the full production stage - is the most relevant, variable between 80.6% share in the case of the particulate matter indicator to the 99.64% in the case of land use (Hill - Biological agriculture scenario). Relevant differences can be also traced for each specific indicator among all scenarios; high impacts are traced for the agricultural stages among all scenarios (70% -90% in all indicators) with high impacts caused by fertilizers. Among the transformation stages the bottle production is one of the most relevant sources of life cycle energy uses and environmental impacts (80-90%).

Contribution of different life cycle stages to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with three balanced dietary patterns

In light of the considerable pressure exerted by food production on the environment, the assessment of the environmental burdens of dietary choices has recently gained interest among the scientific community. Several studies based on life cycle thinking approach agreed that a transition from an omnivorous to either a vegan or vegetarian diets would reduce the environmental impact associated with food consumption. The majority of the studies set the system boundaries up to the retail, excluding the consumption phase and generally do not account for uncertainties. The aim of the present study was to assess how personal consumption choices and behaviour can affect the greenhouse gas emissions generated by three balanced dietary patterns (omnivorous, vegetarian and vegan), defined on the basis of nutritional recommendations for an average Italian man. It took into consideration the uncertainties associated with three elements, namely the greenhouse gas emissions due to the production of the food items, the emissions associated with cooking and the food wasted by consumers. The results of the study highlighted that, despite the higher share of greenhouse gas emissions of the supply chain stages prior to consumption (66%-74% of the total emissions), domestic behaviours have an important influence of the total greenhouse gas emissions of the diet, which can offset the lower GHG emissions due to the choice of vegetable-origin foods. In fact, 15%-21% of the total emissions are associated to the cooking phase and 11%-13% to the food waste generation. Therefore, this study remarks the importance of adopting a cradle to grave perspective when assessing the environmental burden of dietary patterns and emphasises the central role of consumers in the definition of low GHG-emitting dietary patterns.

Tackling the Relevance of Packaging in Life Cycle Assessment of Virgin Olive Oil and the Environmental Consequences of Regulation

Production and consumption of olive oil is very important in Europe, being this product a basic element in the Mediterranean diet since long ago. The project objective is two-fold: a study of the contribution of virgin olive oils (VOOs) usual packaging to the whole life cycle of the product and a study of the environmental consequences of the Spanish Government regulation on VOO packaging. A life cycle assessment (LCA) according to ISO 14044 has been performed using the CML methodology for the impact assessment. The results show that the packaging influence varies from 2 to 300%, depending on the impact category and type of packaging (glass, tin or polyethylene terephtalate). Glass, which is related to higher quality perception by consumers, was found to be the most influencing material (due to its weight); however, this impact may be fairly reduced by applying ecodesign strategies (such as weight reduction and recycled-glass percentage increase). A new Spanish regulation on the mandatory use of non-refillable oilers in HORECA establishments (hotels, restaurants and caterings) aims to provide more quality assurance and better information to consumers; however, it was also found to mean a 74% increase in greenhouse gases emissions. This regulation was deeply discussed at European level and its application was withdraw due to consumers rejection, except for Spain. The findings of the present case study show that LCA and ecodesign should be important tools to be promoted and applied in policy making to reduce non-desirable consequences of regulation.

Harvesting system sustainability in Mediterranean olive cultivation

The mechanization of farming operation plays an important role in improving the profitability of the agricultural sector by increasing work productivity and reducing production costs. However, the new challenges of agriculture also include the environmental issues. The choice between different alternatives to perform a determined agricultural practice should be based on reliable information, considering technical, economic and environmental aspects. Olive growing represents the most important agricultural production in the Mediterranean Basin and its mechanization, particularly harvesting, could have major impacts on the sustainability of this production. This study aims at assessing various olive-harvesting scenarios, while considering technical, economic and environmental aspects in order to build a beta version of the "olive-harvesting database". The proposed methodology called "modular approach" could represent a useful tool to apply in unitary process assessment in order to obtain a comprehensive database of the diverse agricultural operations. The methodology was based on Life Cycle Assessment and production cost analysis. Technical performance evaluation showed that the recorded work capacities varied between 5 tons of harvested olives per day when employing mechanical harvest aids and 18 tons per day when employing trunk shakers. The economic evaluation highlighted that the harvesting costs are variable as a function of the given cost type (costs per hour, costs per kg of harvested olives and costs per hectare). The LCA revealed that mechanically aided techniques were the most sustainable ones when the functional unit is considered as one harvesting hour, although this FU is not the most suitable unit for choosing the best environmental solution. The surface and production mass units are more appropriate FUs in comparative studies, although they are strictly linked to the "work capacity". A significant variation in the environmental performances depended on the FUs and on the average yields when the FU represented one kg of harvested olives.

Carbon and energy footprint of the hydrate-based biogas upgrading process integrated with CO2 valorization

The present paper aims at assessing the carbon and energy footprint of an energy process, in which the energy excess from intermittent renewable sources is used to produce hydrogen which reacts with the CO₂ previously separated from an innovative biogas upgrading process. The process integrates a hydrate-based biogas upgrading section and a CO₂ methanation section, to produce biomethane from the biogas enrichment and synthetic methane from the CO₂ methanation. Clathrate hydrates are crystalline compounds, formed by gas enclathrated in cages of water molecules and are applied to the selective separation of CO₂ from biogas mixtures. Data from the experimental setup were analyzed in order to evaluate the green-house gas emissions (carbon footprint CF) and the primary energy consumption (energy footprint EF) associated to the two sections of the process. The biosynthetic methane production during a single-stage process was 0.962Nm³, obtained mixing 0.830Nm³ of methane-enriched biogas and 0.132Nm³ of synthetic methane. The final volume composition was: 73.82% CH₄, 19.47% CO₂, 0.67% H₂, 1.98% O₂, 4.06% N₂ and the energy content was 28.0MJ/Nm³. The functional unit is the unitary amount of produced biosynthetic methane in Nm³. Carbon and energy footprints are 0.7081kgCO_2eq/Nm³ and 28.55MJ/Nm³, respectively, when the electric energy required by the process is provided by photovoltaic panels. In this scenario, the overall energy efficiency is about 0.82, higher than the worldwide average energy efficiency for fossil methane, which is 0.75.

Environmental impacts in the life cycle of olive oil: a literature review

The production of olive oil is considered to be one of the largest agricultural business sectors in the Mediterranean area. Apart from its significant impact on the economies of countries in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and Middle East, olive oil production also involves considerable social and environmental considerations. However, despite such importance, the environmental effects of olive oil production have not been studied as much other agricultural productions and farming systems, which are more characteristic of central and northern Europe. We present a thorough and systematic literature review of scientific publications with respect to the use of environmental tools in the life cycle of olive oil. The analysis takes into consideration the farming of olive trees, the manufacture of olive oil, packaging, transportation and reverse logistics. To that end, journal publications up to 2015 in this specific field are recorded and, at the same time, the most important environmental impacts are revealed and a gap analysis is carried out. The analysis conducted reveals that farming of olive trees (with pesticide use and waste/by-product production being the 'hottest' topics) and the manufacturing of olive oil (concentrating mostly on waste/by-product production and management) are the phases with the highest environmental focus from the scientific community. Moreover, gaps in the literature are detected mostly with respect to fuel consumption and the use and promotion of renewable energy sources in olive oil production. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

Product vs corporate carbon footprint: Some methodological issues. A case study and review on the wine sector

Carbon footprint (CF) is nowadays one of the most widely used environmental indicators. The scope of the CF assessment could be corporate (when all production processes of a company are evaluated, together with upstream and downstream processes following a life cycle approach) or product (when one of the products is evaluated throughout its life cycle). Our hypothesis was that usually product CF studies (PCF) collect corporate data, because it is easier for companies to obtain them than product data. Six main methodological issues to take into account when collecting corporate data to be used for PCF studies were postulated and discussed in the present paper: fugitive emissions, credits from waste recycling, use of "equivalent factors", reference flow definition, accumulation and allocation of corporate values to minor products. A big project with 18 wineries, being wine one of the most important agri-food products assessed through CF methodologies, was used to study and to exemplify these 6 methodological issues. One of the main conclusions was that indeed, it is possible to collect corporate inventory data in a per year basis to perform a PCF, but having in mind the 6 methodological issues described here. In the literature, most of the papers are presenting their results as a PCF, while they collected company data and obtained, in fact, a "key performance indicator" (ie., CO₂eq emissions per unit of product produced), which is then used as a product environmental impact figure. The methodology discussed in this paper for the wine case study is widely applicable to any other product or industrial activity.

Carbon footprint of conventional and organic beef production systems: An Italian case study

Beef cattle production is a widespread activity in Italy in the agricultural field and determines an important impact on environment and resources consumption. Carbon footprint evaluation is thus necessary to evaluate the contributions of the different stages and the possible improvements of the production chain. In this study, two typical Italian beef production systems, a conventional and an organic one are investigated in order to evaluate the greenhouse gas emissions from "cradle to gate farm" by a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach; the carbon footprint (CF) per 1kg of live weight meat is calculated. The contributions from feed production, enteric fermentation, and manure management are taken into account, in order to compare the life cycle of the two productions; also the carbon balance in soil is evaluated, in order to verify the impact in a life cycle perspective. The results of CF calculation of the two farms show that organic system (24.62kgCO_2eq/kg live weight) produce more GHG emissions than the conventional one (18.21kgCO_2eq/kg live weight) and that the enteric fermentation is the more heavy contribution, with a range of 50-54% of the global CF value. Improvements of the production chain could be realized by accurate feeding strategies, in order to obtain reduction of methane emissions from enteric digestion of cattles.

Carbon footprint as an instrument for enhancing food quality: overview of the wine, olive oil and cereals sectors

The quantification of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions represents a critical issue for the future development of agro-food produces. Consumers' behaviour could play an important role in requiring environmental performance as an essential element for food quality. Nowadays, the carbon footprint (CFP) is a tool used worldwide by agro-food industries to communicate environmental information. This paper aims to investigate the role that CFP could have in consumers' choices in three significant agro-food sectors in the Mediterranean area: wine, olive oil and cereals. A critical review about the use of CFP was carried out along the supply chain of these three sectors, in order to identify opportunities for enhancing food quality and environmental sustainability and highlighting how environmental information could influence consumers' preferences. The analysis of the state of the art shows a great variability of the results about GHG emissions referred to agricultural and industrial processes. In many cases, the main environmental criticisms are linked to the agricultural phase, but the other phases of the supply chain could also contribute to the increased CFP. However, despite the wide use of CFP by companies as a communication tool to help consumers' choices in agro-food products, some improvements are needed in order to provide clearer and more understandable information. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

Environmental impact of an Italian wine bottle: Carbon and water footprint assessment

The food sector represents one of the major impacting sectors from an environmental point of view and, among all the products, wine emerges as one of the most studied by the literature. Single-issue approaches are commonly used, but a more comprehensive analysis is desirable, since a single indicator does not properly track the pressure on the environment. This paper presents a combined carbon and water footprint assessment, with a cradle to grave approach, for a protected designation of origin Italian red wine, and suggests a correlation among the two indicators across the life cycle phases. A total CF equal to 1.07±0.09kgCO2eq/bottle and a total WF equal to 580±30l/bottle were calculated for the studied product and a direct proportionality was found between the total CF and the sum of WFgrey(indirect) and WFblue.

Water Footprint of crop productions: A review

Water Footprint is an indicator recently developed with the goal of quantifying the virtual content of water in products and/or services. It can also be used to identify the worldwide virtual water trade. Water Footprint is composed of three parts (green, blue and grey waters) that make the assessment complete in accordance with the Water Footprint Network and with the recent ISO14046. The importance of Water Footprint is linked to the need of taking consciousness about water content in products and services and of the achievable changes in productions, diets and market trades. In this study, a literature review has been completed on Water Footprint of agricultural productions. In particular, the focus was paid on crops for the production of food and bioenergy. From the review, the development of the Water Footprint concept emerged: in early studies the main goal was to assess products' water trade on a global scale, while in the subsequent years, the goal was the rigorous quantification of the three components for specific crops and in specific geographical areas. In the most recent assessments, similarities about the methodology and the employed tools emerged. For 96 scientific articles on Water Footprint indicator of agricultural productions, this literature review reports the main results and analyses weaknesses and strengths. Seventy-eight percent of studies aimed to quantify Water Footprint, while the remaining 22% analysed methodology, uncertainty, future trends and comparisons with other footprints. It emerged that most studies that quantified Water Footprint concerned cereals (33%), among which maize and wheat were the most investigated crops. In 46% of studies all the three components were assessed, while in 18% no indication about the subdivision was given; in the remaining 37%, only blue or green and blue components were quantified.