Multi-scale energy-carbon assessment for oyster cold chain: an empirical study

Abstract

The existing oyster cold chain suffers from high energy consumption, numerous links, and low transparency. Few studies provide a comprehensive and integrated assessment of the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the oyster cold chain. Therefore, this paper designs and builds an oyster cold chain assessment system aimed at providing an energy-carbon, economic, and sustainability assessment framework for the oyster cold chain industry. Field experiments and numerical calculations for three types of oyster cold chains — enterprise (C1), boutique (C2), and experimental (C3)—were conducted to obtain the environmental footprints of the different cold chains from the production to retail stages. The results showed that the first refrigerated transportation stage of the oyster cold chain has the most significant energy consumption and carbon emissions and is the priority for optimization. The C3 cold chain produced the least combined energy consumption (188.106 kgce/1000kg) and carbon emissions (305.5461 kgCO₂/1000kg), and it had the highest sustainability score. The C2 cold chain had the highest combined cost (79.43/kg) but the lowest spoilage rate (1%), making it the best choice for the high-end oyster market. Sensitivity analysis showed that the C2 cold chain was more dependent on diesel fuel and the C3 cold chain was more dependent on electricity. Retrofitting refrigerated display cabinets and using advanced phase change materials are key to energy savings and emission reductions. This study is a positive exploration of greening, digitization, and efficiency of the oyster cold chain, promoting cleaner production in the oyster cold chain industry.