Environmental and economic life cycle evaluation of potential energy efficiency measures on Latvian fish supply chain

Abstract

The food industry consumes a significant amount of energy, and it is responsible for 20 to 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with cold supply chains absorbing about 70 percent of the energy expended in post-agriculture food systems. Despite this, some gaps remain in the sector when looking toward identifying energy consumption hotspots and evaluating the impact of energy efficiency measures across the entire supply chain. This study implements an environmental Life Cycle Assessment and a Life Cycle Cost analysis to assess a Latvian fish cold supply chain and implement two energy efficiency measures in different stages. Specifically, a fish waste valorization scenario via anaerobic digestion processes, and a scenario implementing a photovoltaic system, are considered. Both strategies proved economically feasible and delivered environmental benefits at different levels than the defined baseline scenario. The energy production from fish waste showed the best economic evaluation performance, with an internal rate of return of 14.4 percent.

Keywords

• Cold supply chain
• Energy efficiency measures
• Life cycle cost
• Circular economy
• Sidestream valorization