In the next decades, population and economic development particularly in developing countries will radically change the demand for food and natural resources. Economic growth is rapidly expanding the middle class and changing consumption patterns in the developing regions worldwide. These trends will increase the demand for food, water and energy. To fulfill this demand in a sustainable and efficient manner to avoid food and water scarcity as well as environmental catastrophes in the near future, some industries, particularly the ones involved in food and energy production, have to drastically change its current production systems
The Australian food industry has been playing a very important role in the scenario described above. It is one of the major food exporters in the world, supplying fast growing international markets in Asia and the Middle East. Though the Australian food supply chains are well economically and technologically developed, it has been facing enduring challenges in its international competitiveness as well as in addressing its sustainability issues. To identify environmental, economic and social impacts created during food production and provide possible solution to overcome these challenges, we propose the development of an integrated framework for sustainability assessment.
The proposed framework uses a combination of Industrial Ecology (IE); Circular Economy (CE) and systems based methods and tools intending to develop a novel and useful methodological framework for life cycle sustainability analysis of the Australian food industry. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) and agent-based modeling are key pillars of the integrated framework aimed to determine the areas of improvement to design out wastes and recast processes for efficient operations in the food industry in Australia through CE and IE principles, respectively.
To assess and measure the environmental impacts and costs as well as the socio-economic benefits and impacts of the Australian food industry, the proposed framework uses LCSA methods. It also identifies, assesses and recommends sustainable production processes that employ the principles of IE and CE in its operations to promote and develop a closed-loop production system for the Australian food supply chain. Lastly, the framework uses integrated modeling approaches to appraise how the implementation of the recommended technologies and approaches could affect the industry and its stakeholders.
The proposed framework has been applied to assess any of the sub-sectors in the Australian food industry and other industrial or production processes in different industries. Additionally, it could serve to support decision makers and stakeholders involved in food production during decision-making; and the results can be used as inputs in future Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis and eco-redesign in food and other industrial systems in Australia and worldwide.
• Life cycle sustainability assessment , • Circular economy , • Sustainable consumption and production
