Alessandra Zamagni

• PhD
• Scientific Director at Ecoinnovazione spin-off ENEA

The study provides technical assistance to the European Commission to specify and operationalise the derogations for the prohibition on the destruction of unsold apparel and footwear. Article 25(5) of the ESPR outlines potential reasons for these derogations, for the consumer products listed in Annex VII. The study evaluates the applicability of ea...

Promoting environmentally friendly behaviors is a pivotal strategy in addressing the climate crisis. The food industry’s impact on pollution and resource consumption underscores the importance of fostering eco-sustainable food consumption, which can significantly benefit the environment. However, despite the global surge in green purchase intention...

Changing individual habits towards greener choices is an essential ingredient in tackling the environmental crisis. Engaging in green behavior may improve psychological wellbeing. Although the intention to buy green products is widespread, the eco-friendly market is struggling to leave the ground. Greenwashing can increase skepticism towards green...

This publication is a Technical report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's science and knowledge service. It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process. The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the European Commission. Neither the Eur...

ORIENTING is a Horizon 2020 project with the main objective to develop a robust and operational methodology for life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) of products. The project is structured in seven work packages (WP). WP1 (“Concept and specifications”) has the goal to identify and select the best available (and/or promising) methods and tools...

The goal of ORIENTING’s Task 1.6, and this deliverable (D1.5), was to identify approaches usable for the integration of the three sustainability domains (environmental, economic and social), as well as criticality and circularity aspects, to present a critical evaluation of integration methods, and to provide recommendations for further work in ORI...

This deliverable is part of the ORIENTING project and describes the work that has been done in Task 1.3 (in WP1), about the analysis of social approaches for life cycle sustainability assessment. The goal of Task 1.3, and hence of this deliverable, is to identify and select the best available and promising methods and sources of social life cycle i...

This article provides guidelines for conducting consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. It presents the main features of two alternative approaches used in LCA-attributional and consequential-and describes how consequential LCA can be performed consistently and appropriately, with an example provided to guide practitioners. It is argued...

Finkbeiner (2021) comments on our critique (Heijungs et al., 2021) of the amendment to ISO 14044. We summarize hereafter his comment: • According to him, the ISO amendment does not rule out system expansion (in the sense of expanding the functional unit) in favor of substitution (in the sense of subtracting the avoided impacts of coproducts); inste...

The social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) has emerged as a methodological approach aimed at evaluating social and socio-economic aspects of products and organisations, and their potential positive and negative impacts along their life cycle. Through the UNEP-SETAC Guidelines for S-LCA of products, recently revised and improved, and the complementary...

Purpose and context This paper aims to establish principles for the increased application and use of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). Sustainable development (SD) encompassing resilient economies and social stability of the global system is growingly important for decision-makers from business and governments. The “17 SDGs” emerge as a...

To assess the potential environmental impact of human/industrial systems, life cycle assessment (LCA) is a very common method. There are two prominent types of LCA, namely attributional (ALCA) and consequential (CLCA). A lot of literature covers these approaches, but a general consensus on what they represent and an overview of all their difference...

The EU Emission Trading System (ETS) represents an essential part of the European policies on Climate Change, targeting the most polluting organizations, which cover 45% of the GHG emissions. However, no common framework has been proposed yet for “non-ETS organizations.” The reduction of direct emissions in most of the cases is not enough for signi...

Purpose A review of LCA process datasets is an important element of quality assurance for databases and for other systems to provide LCA datasets. Somewhat surprisingly, a broadly accepted and applicable set of criteria for a review of LCA process datasets was lacking so far. Different LCA databases and frameworks are proposing and using different...

This book gives a selection of contributions from the 6th Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) Conference in Pescara, Italy. S-LCA is a social (real and potential) impact assessment method that aims to drive improvements in order to increase the value of products and services. It helps organizations to plan better, implement more effectively, and p...

Nowadays, organisations need to be socially responsible by assessing their social impacts and/or performances and those of their supply chain actors in order to achieve competitive advantages. In this perspective, they should be aware of the different available methods and tools that can be used to take socially responsible decisions. The aim of th...

This paper shows one of the first example of S-LCA application in the automotive sector by means of the Product Social Impact Assessment method, developed by the Roundtable for the Product Social Metrics. The case study concerns a vehicle component. The main companies involved in the production stage have been engaged in the data collection; theref...

Presentation on the current status and needs of S-LCA, given at the Workshop organised by the DG GROW and UN Environment in Brussels, April 5th, 2019

Pesticides are commonly applied in conventional agricultural systems, but they can lead to serious environmental contamination. The calculation of on-field pesticide emissions in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies is challenging, because of the difficulty in the calculation of the fate of pesticides and, therefore, several literature approaches ba...

Social Organisational Life Cycle Assessment (SO-LCA) is a methodology to assess the social sustainability performance of an organisation from a life cycle perspective. The substantial difference between this methodology and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) is the evaluated system. Indeed, in S-LCA the evaluated system is the product while in SO...

Honey is a natural sweetener that requires minimal industrial technologies and is the subject of thriving markets along with its derived products. It has been estimated that about 35% of food consumption depends directly on the pollination of fruit and vegetable crops. A Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) case-study is applied in the agro-food se...

Purpose Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) applications have been growing during the last years. Most of the scientific articles published so far have addressed the applicability of S-LCA, focusing on selecting suitable indicators, and only recently, the developments in the area of impact pathway are increasing. However, a critical analysis of ho...

This article provides guidelines for conducting consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. It presents the main features of two alternative approaches used in LCA—attributional and consequential—and describes how consequential LCA can be performed consistently and appropriately, with an example provided to guide practitioners. It is argued...

Companies are required to harmonise their economic and environmental goals with their social ones throughout the supply chain in order to acquire a competitive advantage in a bioeconomic perspective. Social sustainability can be obtained if the enterprise synergistically focuses its ef- forts on the entire Supply Chain (SC). The three dimensions of...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to test the chain-organization environmental footprint (chain-OEF) approach by applying it to part of a pork production chain in Belgium. The approach is supposed to provide insight into the environmental impact of a specific production chain in an efficient manner by applying pragmatic data collection througho...

Mondo del Vino spa and Ecoinnovazione are developing and testing the pilot phase for PEF and OEF in the wine production.

La maggiore consapevolezza del ruolo sociale che compete alle imprese ha condotto la formulazione di metodi di valutazione della sostenibilità rivolti a bilanciare la dimensione economica, sociale ed ambientale. In questo quadro le singole imprese non competono più come entità autonome, ma sono considerate nell’intera Supply Chain (SC) come parte i...

Human activities require the use of goods and services and this often generate negative impacts, such as pollution and the consumption of natural resources. Moreover, each production process requires the use of other goods and services from other production processes, creating supply chains that cross the global economy. Each process in these suppl...

The calculation of emissions from the use of pesticides is a critical issue in LCA studies of agri-food products and only occasionally discussed in details in literature studies. The objective of this study is to assess the results of the application of PestLCI 2.0 model to the production of maize in Northern Italy using site-specific soil and clim...

The evaluation, monitoring and reduction of the heating and cooling consumptions are topics of increasing importance. One promising technology is the geothermal heat pump. Despite its undoubted advantages compared to fossil fuels in terms of RES production, CO2 reduction and primary energy savings, there are still significant barriers for the creat...

The purpose of this study is to perform a new literature review of the principal ecodesign methods and tools published in the literature over the last twenty years with the objective of understanding the main obstacles that limit their actual and effective implementation in industrial companies. The main research studies on ecodesign issues are pre...

Purpose This discussion article aims to highlight two problematic aspects in the International Reference Life Cycle Data System (ILCD) Handbook: its guidance to the choice between attributional and consequential modeling and to the choice between average and marginal data as input to the life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis. Methods We analyze the I...

Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) is a relatively new discipline and it is an expanding field of research. After an initial period characterized by the application of the SLCA Guidelines of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, now practitioners are going through an in-depth and critical analysis. The epistemological and methodological aspects of...

The choice of models to estimate emissions from pesticide use represents a key methological aspect but to date a common agreement in the scientific community has not been achieved yet. This paper discusses the application of the PestLCI2.0 model to the case study of refined sugar from sugar beets, evaluating its feasibility and robustness, and cons...

This paper discusses end-of-life (EoL) modeling issues in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), through the application to a domestic cooker hood. Two EoL approaches are applied and discussed, namely the avoided burden and the one recommended by the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Guide, presently under testing. While no case studies on PEF applicatio...

This paper discusses end-of-life (EoL) modeling issues in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), through the application to a domestic cooker hood. Two EoL approaches are applied and discussed, namely the avoided burden and the one recommended by the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Guide, presently under testing. While no case studies on PEF applicatio...

This article introduces the special series "LCA in Market Research and Policy: Harmonization beyond standardization," which was generated from the 19th SETAC Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Case Study Symposium held November 2013, in Rome, Italy. This collection of invited articles reflects the purpose of symposium and focuses on how LCA can support th...

The mechatronic sector is a strategic sector from the economic and environmental point of view, mainly due to the high content of strategic raw materials used such as (precious) metals, and also on the high production rate, short service life and, in turn, to the high waste flows they generate. The end-of-life (EoL) management of mechatronic produc...

The promotion of efficient use of resources is at the core of the Europe 2020 Strategy and its flagship initiative on “A Resource Efficient Europe”. Ambitious goals are defined, whose achievement requires actions across different sectors. Mechatronic products play an important role in this framework for three main reasons: (i) the high energy and r...

Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) is a relatively new discipline and it is an expanding field of research. After an initial period characterized by the application of the SLCA Guidelines of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, now practitioners are going through an in-depth and critical analysis. The epistemological and methodological aspects of...

Many approaches and strategies have been developed to implement sustainability aspects in the product development process. Within these approaches, Life Cycle Assessment has been claimed to be the best framework for assessing the potential environmental impact of products throughout their life cycle. However, the use and interpretation of LCA resul...

The framework for Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) developed within the project CALCAS is introducing a truly integrated approach for sustainability studies. However it needs to be further conceptually refined and to be made operational. In particular, one of the gap still hindering the adoption of integrated analytic tools for sustainabil...

Life Cycle Inventory dataset, ILCD entry level compliant, on "refined sugar from sugar beet".

The framework for life cycle sustainability analysis (LCSA) developed within the project CALCAS (Co-ordination Action for innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability) is introducing a truly integrated approach for sustainability studies. However, it needs to be further conceptually refined and to be made operational. In particular, one of...

L’area della Federazione dei Comuni del Camposampierese è caratterizzata da una forte vocazione manifatturiera: secondo le ultime elaborazioni ufficiali sono presenti 11.957 insediamenti produttivi di cui il 36% afferenti al settore dell’industria manifatturiera e delle costruzioni e il 31% costituite da imprese artigiane. Per riuscire a valorizzar...

The promotion of efficient use of resources is at the core of the Europe 2020 Strategy and its flagship initiative on "A Resource Efficient Europe". Ambitious goals are defined, whose achievement requires actions across different sectors. Mechatronic products play an important role in this framework initiative for three main reasons: i) the high en...

Purpose. Consequential LCA（CLCA）is becoming widely used in the scientific community as a modelling technique which describes the consequences of a decision. However, despite the increasing number of case studies published, a proper systematization of the approach has not yet been achieved. This paper investigates the methodological implications of...

Towards recommendations for policy making and business strategies Sustainability assessment of future-oriented scenarios: a review of data modelling approaches in Life Cycle Assessment

The Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) aims to detect social and socio-economic aspects of products, and potential positive and negative impacts along their life cycle. Over last years, several efforts were done to improve the methodological basis of S-LCA, which follows the LCA structure closely. However, selection of social aspects to be analys...

Purpose Sustainability Science (SS) is considered an emerging discipline, applicative and solution-oriented whose aim is to handle environmental, social and economic issues in light of cultural, historic and institutional perspectives. The challenges of the discipline are not only related to better identifying the problems affecting sustainability...

This Chapter describes and discusses the approach for identifying a simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) model suited for SMEs in the agri-food sector, addressing both the supply (developments of methods and tools) and demand (what stakeholders desire from a life cycle tool) side of the simplification problem. As far as the demand side is concern...

The food supply chain has become an important contributor to a number of environmental impacts, and food and drink products are accountable for a significant share of the overall environmental impacts of private consumption. In order for the whole chain to be taken into account, a life cycle approach to environmental assessment is needed; in that f...

In Chap. 6 a simplified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool that could be suitable for SMEs, especially in the food industry, was identified. In this Chapter, the selected tool (eVerdEE) was tested for its robustness and suitability, by implementing it to an Italian wine produced by a small winery. A full LCA was also carried out to evaluate in parall...

The Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) framework is considered suitable for evaluating the sustainability of products/systems/services, by means of a combined evaluation of environmental, economic and social impacts through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Life Cycle Costing (eLCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA), respectively. The fra...

Despite the great number of methods and approaches developed, the broad notion of sustainability is still not sufficiently reflected in the existing assessment frameworks and tools. In fact, each of them addresses only specific aspects of sustainability, and thus fails in describing its main characteristics, i.e., complexity (multi-disciplinary kno...

Introduzione Il 6° Censimento generale dell'agricoltura, riferito ad ottobre 2010, conferma la grande importanza economica e sociale del settore, mostrando un'agricoltura caratterizzata da aziende agricole diminuite di numero (1.620.884, di cui 44.455 aziende applicano il metodo biologico) ma di dimensione maggiore (superficie agricola totale di 17...

Purpose In the context of progress of sustainability science, life cycle thinking and, in particular, life cycle sustainability assessment may play a crucial role. Environmental, economic and social implications of the whole supply chain of products, both goods and services, their use and waste management, i.e. their entire life cycle from “cradle...

The Eco-Management for Food Project (EMAF Project - PRIN No.2008TXFBYT co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research) has the purpose to design and implement a Product-Oriented Environmental Management System (POEMS) framework that is specified for the agri-food industry. The POEMS framework has a modular structure resulti...

Purpose Consequential LCA (CLCA) is becoming widely used in the scientific community as a modelling technique which describes the consequences of a decision. However, despite the increasing number of case studies published, a proper systematization of the approach has not yet been achieved. This paper investigates the methodological implications of...

Ecosmes.net è un portale multilingue che intende supportare il processo di eco-innovazione delle piccole e medie imprese europee mettendo a disposizione informazioni, strumenti di formazione e software semplificati per l’analisi del ciclo di vita e l’eco-progettazione di prodotti

The aim of this abstract is to present a LCM tool designed for the agri-food industry, a POEMS framework with a modular structure resulting from the integration of complementary tools: an Integrated Management System (IMS), a simplified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a suitable Environmental Product Label or Declaration (EPLD) - EMAF Project co-fu...

Rapid growth in life cycle assessment (LCA) methodological developments has generated a large body of work that may appear to lack direction. In this article we developed and applied a structured approach, inspired by the meta-analysis concept, to examine literature and identify research thrusts on how to further develop LCA. The procedure consists...

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent a key vector to introduce and diffuse eco-innovation in the market, because of their relevance to both the environment and the European gross domestic product. As they are often focused on continuous and incremental innovation of their products, the optimization of product eco-innovation paths can...

Successful market penetration of Fuel Cell (FC) technologies requires increased research and technological efforts towards improved efficiency, durability, costs and environmental performance according to accepted standards. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can help understand to what extent FCs are environmentally sound, to what extent they can be impr...