An organisational-life cycle assessment approach for Internet of Things technologies implementation in a human milk bank
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Human milk banks (HMB) are responsible for screening and recruiting milk donors with surplus milk to their own infant’s needs, followed by transporting, heat-treating (pasteurising) and microbiologically confirming the donor human milk (DHM) is safe to issue to vulnerable infants. Maintaining the safety and quality of DHM are vital requirements in HMB operations. DHM must be maintained in ideal temperature conditions throughout the whole period—from expression until delivery. In this regard, monitoring technologies (e.g., sensors, Big Data and the Internet of Things) have become a viable solution to avoid food loss, allowing prompt corrective action. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the trade-offs between optimising DHM transportation and the environmental impact of implementing such technologies. The environmental performance was carried out through an Organisational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA). The electricity consumed during milk storage is the main driver for the environmental impacts in this organisation, responsible for up to 82% of the impacts in ionising radiation. The transportation stage and the treatment of discarded DHM were also relevant for ozone formation and marine eutrophication, respectively. Considering the strategy to integrate monitoring technologies to control the temperature conditions during transportation and the reduction of milk discarded by 3%, an environmental impact reduction can be also observed. In some categories, such as global warming, it could avoid around 863 kg of CO2-eq per year. The sensitivity analysis showed that the impacts of the HMB depend highly on the transport distance. In addition, changing the transportation mode from motorcycles to drones or electric vehicles can affect the environmental performance of this organisation. Therefore, human milk transport logistics must be studied in a multidisciplinary way to encompass all possible impacts of these strategies.
Date Issued
2023-01-06
Date Acceptance
2023-01-03
Citation
Sustainability, 2023, 15 (2), pp.1-23
ISSN
2071-1050
Publisher
MDPI AG
Start Page
1
End Page
23
Journal / Book Title
Sustainability
Volume
15
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000918938200001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
environmental analysis
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Environmental Studies
ENVIRONMENTAL-MANAGEMENT
FOOD
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
human milk bank
IoT technologies
LCA
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
milk waste
organisational LCA
Science & Technology
Science & Technology - Other Topics
WASTE
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 1137
Date Publish Online
2023-01-06