Resources consumption and environmental impacts of the agro-food sector. Life cycle assessment of Italian citrus based products

Food production and consumption cause significantenvironmental burdens during the product lifecycles. As a result of intensive development and thechanging social attitudes and behaviors in the last century,the agrofood sector is the highest resource consumer afterhousing in the EU. This paper is part of an effort to estimateenvironmental impacts associated with life cycles ofthe agrofood chain, such as primary energy consumption,water exploitation, and global warming. Life cycleassessment is used to investigate the production of thefollowing citrus-based products in Italy: essential oil, naturaljuice, and concentrated juice from oranges and lemons.The related process flowcharts, the relevant mass andenergy flows, and the key environmental issues are identifiedfor each product. This paper represents one of the firststudies on the environmental impacts from cradle to gatefor citrus products in order to suggest feasible strategiesand actions to improve their environmental performance.