{"title":"Carbon footprint analysis of sugar production in Poland","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.fbp.2024.08.014","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Food production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to identify and reduce emissions. Efficient energy use is critical, alongside the adoption of low-carbon technologies that help agriculture and food processing adapt to climate change. Carbon footprint (CF) analysis is a key tool for assessing the environmental impact of food production and distribution, requiring a thorough evaluation of each product's life cycle from production to consumption. This study focused on the sugar production CF in three Polish plants, examining technological processes and creating unit process diagrams of the production cycle. This analysis led to the development of a database to calculate the CF based on production volume. The determined CF was 0.14–0.27 kg CO<sub>2eq</sub>/kg, and the average CF<sub>av</sub>: for plant 1–0.18; for plant 2–0.19; for plant 3–0.19 kg CO<sub>2eq</sub>/kg. Continuous monitoring is essential, allowing production practices to adapt to changing conditions and ensuring quick responses to sustainability needs. Reducing the sugar production CF involves several strategies, including adopting sustainable cultivation practices, optimizing production processes, using renewable energy sources, improving transportation efficiency, and minimizing waste. Together, these measures promote more environmentally responsible sugar production. By prioritizing sustainability and embracing innovative solutions, the food industry can significantly reduce its environmental impact, meeting the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":12134,"journal":{"name":"Food and Bioproducts Processing","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960308524001627/pdfft?md5=d7b6b284a2cad99d54db987a97ae8071&pid=1-s2.0-S0960308524001627-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Food and Bioproducts Processing","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960308524001627","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIOTECHNOLOGY & APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Food production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, highlighting the need for a comprehensive approach to identify and reduce emissions. Efficient energy use is critical, alongside the adoption of low-carbon technologies that help agriculture and food processing adapt to climate change. Carbon footprint (CF) analysis is a key tool for assessing the environmental impact of food production and distribution, requiring a thorough evaluation of each product's life cycle from production to consumption. This study focused on the sugar production CF in three Polish plants, examining technological processes and creating unit process diagrams of the production cycle. This analysis led to the development of a database to calculate the CF based on production volume. The determined CF was 0.14–0.27 kg CO2eq/kg, and the average CFav: for plant 1–0.18; for plant 2–0.19; for plant 3–0.19 kg CO2eq/kg. Continuous monitoring is essential, allowing production practices to adapt to changing conditions and ensuring quick responses to sustainability needs. Reducing the sugar production CF involves several strategies, including adopting sustainable cultivation practices, optimizing production processes, using renewable energy sources, improving transportation efficiency, and minimizing waste. Together, these measures promote more environmentally responsible sugar production. By prioritizing sustainability and embracing innovative solutions, the food industry can significantly reduce its environmental impact, meeting the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.
期刊介绍:
Official Journal of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering:
Part C
FBP aims to be the principal international journal for publication of high quality, original papers in the branches of engineering and science dedicated to the safe processing of biological products. It is the only journal to exploit the synergy between biotechnology, bioprocessing and food engineering.
Papers showing how research results can be used in engineering design, and accounts of experimental or theoretical research work bringing new perspectives to established principles, highlighting unsolved problems or indicating directions for future research, are particularly welcome. Contributions that deal with new developments in equipment or processes and that can be given quantitative expression are encouraged. The journal is especially interested in papers that extend the boundaries of food and bioproducts processing.
The journal has a strong emphasis on the interface between engineering and food or bioproducts. Papers that are not likely to be published are those:
• Primarily concerned with food formulation
• That use experimental design techniques to obtain response surfaces but gain little insight from them
• That are empirical and ignore established mechanistic models, e.g., empirical drying curves
• That are primarily concerned about sensory evaluation and colour
• Concern the extraction, encapsulation and/or antioxidant activity of a specific biological material without providing insight that could be applied to a similar but different material,
• Containing only chemical analyses of biological materials.