Given the anticipated global population of approximately 10 billion by 2050, the task of ensuring adequate sustenance for all within the constraints of Earth's limited resources presents a significant challenge. The production of food and beverages demands considerable energy investment, as well as other essential resources such as water and nutrients. In addition to this, food production is associated with different kinds of environmental impact, such as global warming, eutrophication, acidification, and biodiversity loss.

This thesis analyzes energy and environmental factors in food and beverage production systems, focusing on tomatoes, whisky, and beer production. It aims to identify energy and environmental hotspots in these systems while also exploring the potential benefits of selected waste management practices, such as anaerobic digestion, for improving system circularity and environmental performance. The thesis uses several methods for energy and environmental systems analysis, including life cycle assessment and material flow analysis, as well as energy system simulation and optimization.

A key finding is the role of local resources, such as renewable energy and access to waste treatment facilities, in determining the environmental impact. Additionally, electricity use and production methods significantly influenced the environmental impact of the studied systems. The importance of transportation varied across the systems, due to differences in transport requirements of both inputs and outputs. Furthermore, this study evaluates various alternatives for increased circularity, particularly through waste treatment and improved resource efficiency. The results contribute to increased understanding of environmental performance across several production systems, offering insights for decision-makers aiming to enhance environmental sustainability of food and beverage production.

Greenhouse fruit and vegetable production uses large amounts of energy and other resources, and finding ways of reducing its impact may increase sustainability. Outputs generated from solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) are suitable for use in greenhouses, which creates a need to investigate the consequences of the possible interactions between them. Connecting the fruit and vegetable production with the resource flows from an SS-AD process, e.g., biogas and digestate, could increase circularity while decreasing the total environmental impact. There are currently no studies where a comprehensive assessment of the material flows between greenhouses and SS-AD are analyzed in combination with evaluation of the environmental impact. In this study, material flow analysis is used to evaluate the effects of adding tomato related waste to the SS-AD, while also using life cycle assessment to study the environmental impact of the system, including production of tomatoes in a greenhouse and the interactions with the SS-AD. The results show that the environmental impact decreases for all evaluated impact categories as compared to a reference greenhouse that used inputs and outputs usually applied in a Swedish context. Using the tomato related waste as a feedstock for SS-AD caused a decrease of biomethane and an increase of carbon dioxide and digestate per ton of treated waste, compared to the digestion of mainly food waste. In conclusion, interactions between a greenhouse and an SS-AD plant can lead to better environmental performance by replacing some of the fertilizer and energy required by the greenhouse.

The food supply chain is responsible for a large share of the anthropogenic contribution to global warming, as well as being a major contributor to several other impact categories such as acidification and eutrophication. Therefore, it is necessary to find ways of limiting the impact from food production and the food supply chain. Many crops are not adapted to growing in regions with cold climate, which creates the need to either import them or to use production methods such as greenhouses to artificially create good conditions for the crops. Sweden is currently reliant on imports for many different crops, including tomatoes where most of the consumption is covered by import from the Netherlands. This study uses life cycle assessment to analyze the potential environmental impact of Swedish tomato consumption, by comparing several year-round domestic production scenarios with scenarios representing import from the Netherlands. This is done by using a greenhouse simulation software to simulate a theoretical greenhouse placed in both countries, and then using the simulation results in combination with data from the database EcoInvent to perform a life cycle assessment. The results showed that Swedish domestic production has the potential to decrease the environmental impact of tomatoes consumed in Sweden, when compared to import from the Netherlands. There were a couple of combinations of production scenarios and impact categories where the Dutch production performed better, but the Swedish production scenarios performed better in general. The results also clearly showed that scenarios using LED lighting systems consistently had a lower impact than similar production scenarios using high-pressure sodium lighting systems. The choice of energy sources was identified as a crucial factor when it comes to the environmental impact of the studied systems.

The number of horses in Sweden is increasing and according to estimated statistics from Swedish Board of Agriculture, there are an estimated amount of 360,000 horses in the country. These horses are found in different types of activities (agriculture, trail riding, trot and canter, etc.) and they generate large quantities of horse manure. Horse manure consists of feces, urine and bedding material which various bedding materials used to various amount. The management of horse manure causes environmental problems when emissions occur during decomposition of organic material, in addition to nutrients not being recycled. The interest for horse manure be subject to anaerobic digestion and thereby produce biogas has increased with the increased interest in biogas as a renewable fuel.

This study has aimed to highlight the environmental impact of different ways to treat horse manure from a system perspective. Special attention has been focused on the involve­ment of different types of litter/bedding material and how it affects the effective­ness of various treatment processes. The treatment methods investigated are

1. Unmanged composting
2. Managed Composting
3. Large-scale incineration in a waste fired CHP plant
4. Drying and small-scale combustion
5. Solid state anaerobic digestion
6. Liquid state anaerobic digestion with and without thermal pre-treatment

Following significant data uncertainty in the survey, the results are only indicative, but they still point to large-scale incineration as an environmentally sound method. An excep­tion is the contribution to climate impact where digestion in different forms are preferred. Based on the study of various bedding materials, paper pellet appear as an interesting alternative to move forward with.

The overall conclusion is that more research is needed to ensure the quality of future surveys, thus an overall research effort from horse management to waste management.

Horse manure consists of feces, urine, and varying amounts of various bedding materials. The management of horse manure causes environmental problems when emissions occur during the decomposition of organic material, in addition to nutrients not being recycled. The interest in horse manure undergoing anaerobic digestion and thereby producing biogas has increased with an increasing interest in biogas as a renewable fuel. This study aims to highlight the environmental impact of different treatment options for horse manure from a system perspective. The treatment methods investigated are: (1) unmanaged composting; (2) managed composting; (3) large-scale incineration in a waste-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant; (4) drying and small-scale combustion; and (5) liquid anaerobic digestion with thermal pre-treatment. Following significant data uncertainty in the survey, the results are only indicative. No clear conclusions can be drawn regarding any preference in treatment methods, with the exception of their climate impact, for which anaerobic digestion is preferred. The overall conclusion is that more research is needed to ensure the quality of future surveys, thus an overall research effort from horse management to waste management.

Agricultural production and further processing to food and drink have large impacts on the environment. However, there are still few examples of LCA studies on beverages such as whisky. This paper presents a life cycle assessment of Swedish single malt whisky and different environmental improvements of the production chain are discussed. The functional unit is one bottle (70cl) of whisky and results are obtained for global warming potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication potential (EP) and primary energy (PE). The contribution to GWP is dominated by CO<inf>2</inf> emissions from transport of stillage. When avoided emissions from use of biogas are included, the net result is 2.1tonnes CO<inf>2</inf>-eq. Acidification is mainly due to emissions of SO<inf>2</inf> from bottle production, transport and barley cultivation which ends up to 14.6kgSO<inf>2</inf>-eq. Eutrophication results are totally dominated by barley cultivation, in total 8.6kgPO43-The total use of primary energy is 53.5MJ/FU with a 50/50 distribution in renewable and non-renewable. Non-renewables emanate from fossil fuels used for transports and in glass production, whereas renewables are mostly used for heating in the distillery. Improvement analysis of transports included; (1) decreasing need of transport, (2) change of fuel and (3) change of transport mode. Decreasing transport of stillage is an efficient measure to reduce GWP and use of non-renewable energy. Substituting diesel with biodiesel for all road transports is an even more efficient measure for these categories, but increases other environmental impact. For all impact categories except use of renewable energy a scenario combining all improvements is the most efficient measure to reduce environmental impact. The results can be used by the manufacturer, but an improved and expanded LCA on product level can be used for a more specific eco-labelling of the different whisky editions. 

The number of horses in society is increasing and today, according to Swedish Board of Agriculture, there are approximately 360,000 horses in Sweden, where three-quarters are found in urban or near-urban environments. All these horses will, according to calcula­tions, give rise to a total amount of manure of up to 1.4 million tons per year. If this manure is digested efficiently, this corresponds to an annual biogas production of 641 GWh, which is almost half of all biogas produced in Sweden in 2010. Although there are some practical limitations on how much of the potential that can be exploited, there is nevertheless a significant potential for increased use of renewable energy. By collecting manure and digesting it, three environmental benefits can be achieved:

1. Emissions from conventional management where the manure is piled and stored, or spontaneously composted, are avoided
2. Anaerobic digestion of manure produces biogas that can be used to generate elec­tricity and heat and, after upgrading (purification and pressure increase), as vehicle fuel; thereby fossil fuel emissions are reduced
3. The resulting digestate can be used in agriculture, thereby replacing chemical ferti­lizer which provides additional environmental benefits

Despite all these possibilities there are some obstacles and gaps in knowledge. This report is a systematic review of the state of knowledge about horse manure management, pre­treatment methods, digestion methods of horse manure, as well as aspects of the prolifer­ation of bio-fertilizer from horse manure. This part is mainly qualitative descriptions while subsequent reports present indicative calculations of the environmental benefits of different ways to design the management.

The conclusions are that there are many factors that point to extract energy from horse manure, e.g. there are significant amounts of manure relatively close to urban areas, the straw bedding materials provide a supplement in biogas production, there is plenty of land for spreading digestate, and an improved horse manure management is also a good water protection measure. Drawbacks are that the digestion of horse manure is relatively untested and it is difficult to assess how increased waste management costs affect the horse industry. Another conclusion is the general lack of knowledge of horse manure from an environmental perspective at a level required for reliable environmental assess­ments. Nevertheless we hope to be able to propose system solutions which to a greater extent than previously should prove to work technically and be economically feasible. If these systems are translated into practical reality, environmental gains can be made through reduced environmental impact, reduced eutrophication, increased biodiversity and reduced use of finite resources.

The purpose of this project is to compare emissions of greenhouse gases from material recycling with those from virgin material production, both from a material supply perspective and from a recycling system perspective. The method for estimating emissions and climate benefits is based on a review, followed by a selection, of the most relevant publications on life cycle assessment (LCA) of materials for use in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The proposed averages show that emissions from material recycling are lower in both perspectives, comparing either material supply or complete recycling systems. The results can be used by companies and industry associations in Denmark, Norway and Sweden to communicate the current climate benefits of material recycling in general. They may also contribute to discussions on a societal level, as long as their average and historic nature is recognised.

Over 40 participants from five universities and four companies attended and actively contributed to the Intensive week «Sustainable Product Design & Resource Efficiency» organized at the ITMO University in St. Petersburg, 10–14 October, 2016 as a part of the ERREC «Environmental Responsibility and Resource Efficiency in companies» project, funded by the Nordic-Russian Cooperation in Education and Research program (SIU) and the Nordic Council of Ministers. Representatives of universities, including students, and business exchanged their views on how resourceefficiency could be achieved and the environmental impact of current consumption and production patterns decreased. A number of key tools and recommendations were formulated for companies under the new educational paradigm of blended learning, which is introducing a mix of traditional and modern educational methods. The trainees obtained a comprehensive experience for solving specific industry-related problems from the viewpoint of resource efficiency on the basis of pre-course assignments, lectures, teamwork, round-table discussions and an excursion. Particularly the waste management problems in Russia and abroad were highlighted. This paper summarizes the lectures and results from the case studies focusing on technical, managerial, and new information and communication technology applications for improving resource efficiency, and developing environmental responsibility in companies.