Assessing the environmental and water use Impact of italian agricultural firms using an organizational-LCA approach

Environmental sustainability has become a key issue in our policy agenda and organisational strategies as we seek to maintain our socio-economic system while reducing the pressure we place on ecosystems. Of all human activities, agriculture is fundamental to our societies, and it is no coincidence that it accounts for 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of freshwater depletion. Furthermore, it requires significant resources and land. For this reason, environmental impact assessment frameworks are needed to identify and monitor the main hotspots of our agricultural organisations, providing tools to help agricultural entrepreneurs improve and demonstrate their performance to consumers. Several such frameworks are in development and are now common in many productive sectors. However, within the activities of the AGRITECH research centre, which is funded by Next Generation EU, organisational life cycle assessment (O-LCA) and water footprint (O-WF) have been selected for implementation within small-to-medium agricultural organisations as a sustainability assessment tool.