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Life cycle assessment (LCA) of food and beverage packaging

This book chapter published by Woodhead was a foundation piece for the authors Verghese, Lockrey, Clune and Silverman on future directions for applying Life Cycle Assessment to food and beverage packaging. The chapter identified two points that have informed the future work of the authors.

1. Food and food waste should be included in packaging Life Cycle Assessments.

2. Life Cycle Assessments could be used as a tool for foresight on future possibilities, as opposed to reflecting on what exists.

The findings in this chapter led to the inclusion of food waste and packaging as a new strategic direction for the Australian Food and Grocery Council to pursue via their white paper. The Australian Food and Grocery Council is the leading national organisation that represents the packaged food, drink and grocery products manufacturers and retailers.

The authors Clune and Verghese have disseminated the key concepts of the chapter at international conferences such as the 8th International Conference on LCA in the Agri-Food Sector, 2-4 October 2012. Rennes, France, and recently applied the content of the chapter as an article for the Journal of Cleaner Production titled The influence of packaging attributes on consumer behaviour in food-packaging LCA studies – a neglected topic. With additional co-authors F Wikström, and H. Williams,

White paper availabe at http://www.afgc.org.au/doc-library/category/11-general-documents.html?download=767%3Aafgc-future-of-packaging-white-paper-extract