3. Producción
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Item type:Publication, Food waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak: a holistic climate, economic and nutritional approach(Elsevier, 2020-11-10)Improving the food supply chain efficiency has been identified as an essential means to enhance food security, while reducing pressure on natural resources. Adequate food loss and waste (FLW) management has been proposed as an approach to meet these objectives. The main hypothesis of this study is to consider that the “strong fluctuations and short-term changes” on eating habits may have major consequences on potential FLW generation and management, as well as on GHG emissions, all taking into account the nutritional and the economic cost. Due to the exceptional lockdown measures imposed by the Spanish government, as a consequence of the emerging coronavirus disease, COVID-19, food production and consumption systems have undergone significant changes, which must be properly studied in order to propose strategies from the lessons learned. Taking Spain as a case study, the methodological approach included a deep analysis of the inputs and outputs of the Spanish food basket, the supply chain by means of a Material Flow Analysis, as well as an economic and comprehensive nutritional assessment, all under a life cycle thinking approach. The results reveal that during the first weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown, there was no significant adjustment in overall FLW generation, but a partial reallocation from extra-domestic consumption to households occurred (12% increase in household FLW). Moreover, the economic impact (+11%), GHG emissions (+10%), and the nutritional content (−8%) complete the multivariable impact profile that the COVID-19 outbreak had on FLW generation and management. Accordingly, this study once again highlights that measures aimed at reducing FLW, particularly in the household sector, are critical to make better use of food surpluses and FLW prevention and control, allowing us to confront future unforeseen scenarios. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Low energy and carbon hydroponic tomato cultivation in Northern Spain: Nutritional and environmental assessment(American Chemical Society, 2024-01-15)The agri-food sector is one of the most impactful on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the largest consumers of energy and natural resources. In this context, the objective of this study was to evaluate the environmental impacts of hydroponic tomatoes cultivated in northern Spain using a waste product as biomass to heat the greenhouses and solar energy for powering the irrigation system to identify their main environmental hotspots and improvement measures. For this purpose, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used. The functional units (FUs) chosen were 1 kg of tomatoes and an alternate FU based on nutrition, e.g., NRF9.3. The influence of including biogenic CO2 emissions has been considered using a “-1/+1″ approach to assess the uptake and release of biogenic carbon throughout the whole life cycle. The main results showed that greenhouse gas emissions varied between 1.4 kg CO2 equiv and 2.5 kg CO2 equiv considering biogenic carbon, whereas the total energy demand of the production of hydroponic tomatoes was 9.7 MJ. Fertilization and the greenhouse structure were identified as the main contributors to environmental burdens; hence, improvement opportunities were focused on these critical points.