Which are lifecycle phases considered for Circular Economy evaluation in the Agri-food sector?

Abstract

The present article is focused on the sustainable indicators that could be applied in the production phases of agri-food sector. The main purpose is to investigate regarding the importance of sustainable indicators in the production phases called “Life Cycle stages”, which can be divided as follow: Beginning of Life, Middle of Life and End of Life. The use of sustainable indicators will increase companies’ performance and will allow them to get higher results than the competitors. In the last years, Circular Economy acquired lots of importance and for this reason, lots of companies started to work with a sustainable vision. In particular, some authors expressed their opinion regarding the importance of sustainable indicators, which are useful for making decisions oriented on sustainability [1]. It means that the use of sustainable indicators encourages Circular Economy vision inside agri-food companies. Agri-food sector needs to have sustainable indicator in such a way that companies achieve sustainable goals for satisfying needs and requirements of customers. All the production phases are important and sustainable indicators are also useful to face up issues as global warming and climate challenges. However, notwithstanding all the studies realized regarding this topic, there is not a study which explains in which phase an indicator should be placed. Furthermore, in all the documents analyzed for the research, authors do not mention them explicitly. So, this could be identified as the gap of the research. Hence, this study allows to discover the importance of sustainable indicators applied on the production phases of agri-food sector and the benefits deriving from their use. Finally, it is also necessary to have a specific metric to understand in which production phases sustainable indicators should be placed.