Valentina Niccolucci

The real water consumption behind drinking water: The case of Italy

The real amount of drinking water available per capita is a topic of great interest for human health and the economic and political management of resources. The global market of bottled drinking water, for instance, has shown exponential growth in the last twenty years, mainly due to reductions in production costs and investment in promotion. This paper aims to evaluate how much freshwater is actually consumed when water is drunk in Italy, which can be considered a mature bottled-water market. A Water Footprint (WF) calculation was used to compare the alternatives: bottled and tap water. Six Italian brands of water sold in PET bottles were inventoried, analysed and compared with the public tap water of the city of Siena, as representative of the Italian context. Results showed that more than 3 L of water were needed to provide consumers with 1.50 L of drinking water. In particular, a volume of 1.50 L of PET-bottled water required an extra virtual volume of 1.93 L of water while an extra 2.13 L was necessary to supply the same volume of tap water. These values had very different composition and origin. The WF of tap water was mainly due to losses of water during pipeline distribution and usage, while WF of bottled water was greatly influenced by the production of plastic materials. When the contribution of cooling water was added to the calculation, the WF of bottled water rose from 3.43 to 6.92 L. Different strategies to reduce total water footprint are discussed.

Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Natural Capital Appropriation through Building Construction: Practical Case Study in the Italian Context

Abstract This paper focuses on appropriation of natural capital through construction of buildings. The ecological footprint and the Costanza natural capital concepts are applied. The environmental consequences of human settlement are currently of great concern, and a need is felt to reduce the impact of building on the environment. The embodied energy of building materials and the “land area” required to sustain their production are considered to evaluate the demand on nature of this activity. The ecological footprints of 2 typical Italian buildings are compared. The paper also focuses on how to reduce the natural capital appropriation of building construction by means of environmentally inexpensive materials, renewable energy resources, and optimization of the use of bioproductive land by construction of multistoried buildings. Finally, to allocate an environmental load of buildings, an economic evaluation of natural capital appropriation through building construction is proposed.

Accounting for “land-grabbing” from a biocapacity viewpoint

The comparison of the Ecological Footprint and its counterpart (i.e. biocapacity) allow for a classification of the worlds countries as ecological creditors (Ecological Footprint lower than biocapacity) or debtors (Ecological Footprint higher than biocapacity). This classification is a national scale assessment on an annual time scale that provides a view of the ecological assets appropriated by the local population versus the natural ecological endowment of a country. We show that GDP per capita over a certain threshold is related with the worsening of the footprint balance in countries classified as ecological debtors. On the other hand, this correlation is lost when ecological creditor nations are considered. There is evidence that governments and investors from high GDP countries are playing a crucial role in impacting the environment at the global scale which is significantly affecting the geography of sustainability and preventing equal opportunities for development. In particular, international market dynamics and the concentration of economic power facilitate the transfer of biocapacity related to “land grabbing”, i.e. large scale acquisition of agricultural land. This transfer mainly occurs from low to high GDP countries, regardless of the actual need of foreign biocapacity, as expressed by the national footprint balance. A first estimation of the amount of biocapacity involved in this phenomenon is provided in this paper in order to better understand its implications on global sustainability and national and international land use policy.

The Ecological Footprint of Building Construction

This paper evaluates the environmental pressure that is generated by the construction of two types of building, through the application of ecological footprint analysis. The appraisal of the impact of human settlement on the environment is of great concern and environmentally-friendly buildings are actually required. By considering the embodied energy of building materials and the “land area” required to sustain their assembly line, a comparison between the ecological footprint of two typical buildings in the context of Italy is presented. Finally, it is shown that the ecological footprint of building construction can be reduced by using environmentally-inexpensive materials, renewable energy resources and by optimizing bio-productive land use through the construction of multi-story buildings.

Measuring Environmental Sustainability of Intensive Poultry-Rearing System

Sustainability of human activities is one of the most important concerns of the European Union. Consequently, the need to assess the level of sustainability achieved both at local and at government level is increasing. This process involves all economic sectors, including agriculture and, in particular, livestock. Until several years ago livestock production systems were mainly focused on production efficiency and qualitative characteristics of meat. However, nowadays rules regarding animal welfare and environmental impact are becoming more and more compulsory and require attention by all the poultry chain. European subsidies are in many cases linked to an environmentally sound behaviour of farms. However, there is still an ongoing discussion regarding the definition of sustainable-agriculture strategic objectives, the criteria to take into account, the actions to develop, and the methodological tools to use for the evaluation. This chapter provides suggestions for improving the environmental evaluation part of a process of sustainability assessment specific for intensive poultry production. The environmental sustainability of an intensive poultry-rearing system is evaluated through the use of three different methods: Emergy Evaluation, Ecological Footprint Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). For each of the three methods a review of its application in agriculture, and specifically in poultry breeding, is presented. Through Emergy Evaluation we found that diet is the most important impact factor for the analysed system, accounting for more than 82% of the total emergy flow. Our results obtained from Ecological Footprint Analysis point out that cropland, which is connected with chicken diet, is the main land component in the indicator, accounting for 73% of the total. Particularly, the high quantity of maize and soya needed for feed requires much cropland. Finally, using LCA, we found that feed production is the element which contributes the most to the environmental impacts of the system, influencing the impact category ‘land use’. As Ecological Footprint, LCA regards the cultivation and the transformation of maize and soya as the processes with the strongest impact. Therefore, although the three methods use specific indicators and methodology, they come to the same conclusions for the system investigated. After applying each method to the poultry system, we propose a comparative analysis between the three methods, based on four different criteria: representativeness, verifiability, reproducibility, comprehensibility. By comparing the methods according to these criteria, we found that each of them shows both positive and negative aspects, strengths and weaknesses, but all of them are effective in representing the environmental features of a given activity, and the results can be used as input in the sustainability assessment process. The choice to use Emergy Evaluation, Ecological Footprint Analysis, or LCA can depend upon the main objective of the assessment process. However, in many cases it is not necessary a choice because the three methods can be used together, and the results can be integrated to build combined indicators, capable to ensure a wide and complete analysis.

An Integrated Footprint Based Approach For Environmental Labelling Of Products: The Case Of Drinking Bottled Water

The aim of this paper is to present an integrated approach to be used in environmental labelling of products. The approach is based on the joint use of three methods inspired by similar philosophy that capture different and complementary aspects of environmental issues. We call it CEW approach as it is based on the footprint family indicators: carbon footprint, ecological footprint and water footprint. Its pros and cons are discussed and an example of application to a product is included to illustrate its potential. A natural mineral water marketed in a 1.5 l PET bottle was chosen as case study and analyzed over its life cycle ‘from cradle to gate’, from the spring to the gate of the plant.

Socio-economic design and nature: A possible representation through ecological footprint

No society would be able to function without the support of healthy forests, clean waters, fertile soils, and other types of ecological capital that provide resources for our use and absorb the wastes we generate. These ecosystem services can be measured through an environmental indicator named biocapacity. On the other side, an environmental tool named Ecological Footprint can be used to measure human consumption related to life style. The main aim of this paper is to verify if a correlation exists between these two parameters and the well being perceived by humans. Data on Life Satisfaction was used as a subjective measure of the satisfaction level perceived by humans. The analysis performed in this study helped one to understand whether our pattern of development is able to make us happy, and whether it is possible to be happy without cost to our planet. The analysis was based on a database of about 130 countries of the world. A geographically based analysis was also performed to compare regional to global trends. Finally, some case studies were presented in time series to analyze the temporal evolution of these three parameters.

Thermodynamic Analysis of Ceramics Production in Sassuolo (Italy) from a Sustainability Viewpoint

We present a thermodynamic analysis of the sustainable use of resources in the province of Modena, focusing the attention on the district of Sassuolo. The methodology that is used is the emergy evaluation. The analysis shows that the Sassuolo district represents the peak of non-sustainability of the whole area, with a huge consumption of non-renewable primary resources, both imported and local. The role of the ceramic tile industry is relevant in the consumption of energy and materials. Different types of factories for ceramics production are compared, representing a good sample of different methods of production. Emergy analysis shows which of these has higher levels of sustainability with respect to the others.

Greenhouse gas emissions accounting for waste management at the local scale

The administrative jurisdiction of the Province of Siena (Tuscany, central Italy) and the waste company (named Siena Ambiente S.p.A.), that operates within the provincial boundaries, have equipped themselves of the Greenhouse gas (GHG) Inventories of the solid waste disposal plants in the integrated management system with the aim to obtain a planning tool. The GHG inventories have been processed in time series (2008–2011) and include 3 landfills, 1 incinerator, 2 composting, 1 selection and valorization production lines. Results show a 12% reduction of the total GHG emissions from 2009 to 2011 due to better landfill management. Moreover, a further GHG emission reduction equal to almost 34% could be obtained if electricity from renewable resources is used (i.e. burned wastes, biogas recovery from landfills and photovoltaic panels). On this way, the consumption of the imported electricity from the national grid, which is mainly obtained by traditional thermoelectric technologies, is avoided. The present experience could be adopted as a reference model for public and private organizations, considering that the provided planning tool could suggest time series emission reduction strategies for interacting with waste disposal facilities. Territorial systems at different scales (cities, municipalities, regions and nations) might be involved in this type of analysis, so as to calibrate the waste management system according to the estimates obtained by GHG inventories, which may be verified ISO 14064 by an independent third organization in order to increase the result reliability.

Sustainability of agro-livestock integration: Implications and results of Emergy evaluation

This study aims to assess the sustainability of an agroforestry system: i.e. a system obtained by the union of two productions to get at least two by-products from the same productive space. In particular, this case study presents the integration of a goose raising system with an organic grape production, from an environmental point of view. This integration is mainly designed to have two simultaneous co-products (grape and goose meat) with: i) a less intensive use of machineries for weeding and ii) avoiding use of chemical fertilizers and weeding. The sustainability is assessed by means of emergy evaluation. Emergy is a thermodynamic based tool able to estimates the environmental cost of products and services in terms of the solar energy (directly and indirectly) required for its production. As Emergy is not a state function, its final value depends on the way the product is made. The set theory applied to the emergy evaluation enables the comparison between the integrated system and the originating isolated systems in a proper way. Results confirm that the integrated system enables a saving, in emergy terms, amounting to 33% compared to the two originating isolated production systems. Emergy evaluation is able to keep track of the lower amount of resources required from outside the agroforestry system due to the optimization of resources internally available.