IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i2p654-d719680.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Review on Life Cycle Assessment of the Olive Oil Production

Author

Listed:
  • Mattia Rapa

    (Department of Management, Sapienza University of Rome, 00161 Rome, Italy)

  • Salvatore Ciano

    (Department of Chemical and Physical Health Risks, Sciensano, 1050 Ixelles, Belgium)

Abstract

Olive oil is one of the most globally recognized high-value products, with 4 million hectares cultivated in the Mediterranean area. The production process involves many stages: farming, extraction, packing, and waste treatment. Each one of these stages should present critical points for the environmental impacts, and for this reason, the entire sector is adopting mitigation strategies to begin to be more sustainable. The mitigation actions’ efficiency should be evaluated through environmental indicators or environmental impact assessment by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This review aimed to carry out an overview of recent papers (2011–2021) involving an LCA study in the olive oil supply chain by giving a framework of what is included in LCA studies and highlighting the main contributors to environmental impacts. The main scholarly literature databases have been exploited, highlighting a great increase in publications, especially from the producer countries. The review results reflect the heterogeneity of the production process. However, the use of pesticides, fertilizers, water, and fuel for machinery heavily weigh on the farming stage’s environmental impact. Finally, special focus was given to key elements of LCA studies in the olive oil supply chain, such as functional unit, system boundaries, impact categories, calculation method, and software widely used.

Suggested Citation

  • Mattia Rapa & Salvatore Ciano, 2022. "A Review on Life Cycle Assessment of the Olive Oil Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:654-:d:719680
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/654/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/654/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Enio Campiglia & Laura Gobbi & Alvaro Marucci & Mattia Rapa & Roberto Ruggieri & Giuliana Vinci, 2020. "Hemp Seed Production: Environmental Impacts of Cannabis sativa L. Agronomic Practices by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Carbon Footprint Methodologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-15, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carmen Ferrara & Giovanni De Feo, 2023. "Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Two Different Packaging Systems for Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: Glass Bottle vs. 100% Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Bottle," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Donatella Restuccia & Sabrina Antonia Prencipe & Marco Ruggeri & Umile Gianfranco Spizzirri, 2022. "Sustainability Assessment of Different Extra Virgin Olive Oil Extraction Methods through a Life Cycle Thinking Approach: Challenges and Opportunities in the Elaio-Technical Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-18, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mattia Rapa & Laura Gobbi & Roberto Ruggieri, 2020. "Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Electric Vehicles: Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing Evaluation of Electricity Sources," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-16, November.
    2. Sinéad M. Madden & Alan Ryan & Patrick Walsh, 2022. "A Systems Thinking Approach Investigating the Estimated Environmental and Economic Benefits and Limitations of Industrial Hemp Cultivation in Ireland from 2017–2021," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-21, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:2:p:654-:d:719680. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.