Can food waste help reduce food waste?
Examining the environmental impacts of a circular supply chain
Project Background
As natural resources become more limited and consumers increasingly demand sustainable products, companies are looking for ways to make their supply chains less environmentally harmful. One concept that has gained traction in recent years is to source wastes from a product system as primary inputs to a different product system. Commonly referred to as “circular economy,” it suggests that sourcing wastes rather than virgin materials can mitigate the negative environmental impacts associated with a company’s production processes by avoiding the impacts of extraction.
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While the idea of circular economy has been quick to catch on within the business community, there have not been many scientific analyses done to validate its claims (Korhonen et al., 2016; Zink & Geyer, 2017). To avoid a scenario in which a shift to a “circular” supply chain results in higher net environmental impacts, organizations must be able to quantitatively evaluate potential systems that use waste as inputs.
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This project works with Apeel Sciences, a company interested in taking a circular-economy- like approach to their supply chain, as a case study to assess how current and available data can be used to analyze the impacts of sourcing a waste. Apeel is interested in sourcing food wastes that occur at the industrial level as a primary input to their production process. Through this analysis, we provide a framework that organizations can use to critically assess opportunities to create circular supply chains.
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Objectives
Through our case study with Apeel Sciences (Apeel), we sought to develop a framework to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with sourcing a waste as an input to production. The primary projects objectives were to:
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Investigate and building specific sourcing scenarios: Understand how the particular wastes Apeel was interested in were created and ultimately disposed of​
Test different Life Cycle Assessment methodologies:
Understand how differing LCA methodologies available to organizations might affect sourcing decisions
Develop industry agnostic decision tool:
Synthesize findings into a decision framework and calculator tool so others can replicate our analysis
