Nowadays the agriculture and food sector
produce
more
and more
food
in
comparison with
prev
ious decades.
The increased world population as well as dietary
changes are the main causes of the high demand in food products.
Especially, meat
industry
is
one
of the largest industries in the world with high demand in energy and
resource consumption. Co
nsequently, the contribution of
meat industries
to
environmental issues like resource depletion, air emissions and land degradation
is
high significance
.
Nevertheless,
meat
companies
are not
entirely aware regarding their
environment
al footprint
.
Life Cycl
e Assessment
(LCA)
is a scientific method applied to
evaluate the environmental impacts arise
n
during
meat products’
life cyc
le.
T
his thesis
focused on
the
evaluation of
environmental impacts
resulted
in
meat
production
chain. More specifically,
an LCA
study was conducted
in an intensive
production system
applied
in a dairy cattle farm in
the
region of Thessaloniki,
Greece.
In the LCA the
current situation in the
farm under study was compared
with
an
alternative scenario which encompass
ed
the valorisatio
n of animal by
-
products.
Therefore, a
comp
rehensive overview
took place
regarding the
environmental
performance
of both scenarios
.
The most environmental
ly
friendly scenario w
as those with the utilization of animal
by
-
products.
T
his scenario
included
the
anaerobic digestion of
dairy cattle manure for
biogas
production
(electricity, heat) as well as the utilization of
digested manure as
organic fertilizer to substitute N
itrogen (N)
and P
hosphorus (
P)
used for feed and crop
production.
Therefore
,
it is crucial meat companies to be aware regarding their
environmental performance
and
after the
detect
ion of
their
weak and key points for
impact mitigation
to choose
the most
effective
actions
which
can
reduce their
environmental impacts
leading to a m
ore sustainable society.
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