Today some natural plant fibers are increasing their importance because of their apparently environmental advantage compared to synthetic fibers. Various studies have calculated the environmental impacts of some of these fiber crop cultivations and, among the results of environmental analysis such as Life Cycle Assessment, high discrepancy has been observed, mainly related to different fiber crop species requirements, differences in the methodologies used in the evaluations, climate and soil conditions, and diversity of production systems adopted in different producer regions of the world. Moreover, there is a lack of research into other dimensions of sustainability concerning their production such as economical and social dimension. The purpose of this work was to obtain insight into the impacts of fiber nettle production in an ongoing study in Central Italy. Growing well everywhere with no biocide requirement, fiber nettle is a promising candidate for food/no-food market production but today not really exploited. Both Life Cycle Assessment and Costing was used to qualify and quantify impact categories and production costs. Data were gathered using both field and secondary collections (specific and generic), the latter mainly on costs of production. Our results demonstrate that a reduction of the environmental impacts associated with the production of fiber nettle plants should give priority to the reduction of resources use in the propagation process and of terrestrial ecotoxicity in the crop production phase. In those cases, the results indicated some trends to improve fiber nettle sustainability, i.e. increasing the use of byproducts and circularity. However, due to the complexity of the evaluation, proposed changes must be evaluated carefully as they may affect costs. In a climate change and global population growth scenario, this fiber nettle production could be a new agricultural resource for raw and food material at low input.
Sustainability assessment of fiber nettle production in Central Italy through a life cycle approach
Di Lonardo S;
2020
Abstract
Today some natural plant fibers are increasing their importance because of their apparently environmental advantage compared to synthetic fibers. Various studies have calculated the environmental impacts of some of these fiber crop cultivations and, among the results of environmental analysis such as Life Cycle Assessment, high discrepancy has been observed, mainly related to different fiber crop species requirements, differences in the methodologies used in the evaluations, climate and soil conditions, and diversity of production systems adopted in different producer regions of the world. Moreover, there is a lack of research into other dimensions of sustainability concerning their production such as economical and social dimension. The purpose of this work was to obtain insight into the impacts of fiber nettle production in an ongoing study in Central Italy. Growing well everywhere with no biocide requirement, fiber nettle is a promising candidate for food/no-food market production but today not really exploited. Both Life Cycle Assessment and Costing was used to qualify and quantify impact categories and production costs. Data were gathered using both field and secondary collections (specific and generic), the latter mainly on costs of production. Our results demonstrate that a reduction of the environmental impacts associated with the production of fiber nettle plants should give priority to the reduction of resources use in the propagation process and of terrestrial ecotoxicity in the crop production phase. In those cases, the results indicated some trends to improve fiber nettle sustainability, i.e. increasing the use of byproducts and circularity. However, due to the complexity of the evaluation, proposed changes must be evaluated carefully as they may affect costs. In a climate change and global population growth scenario, this fiber nettle production could be a new agricultural resource for raw and food material at low input.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
