Assess the friendliness of two products

SCIE8010-The Science of Sustainability
Life Cycle Assessment – Group Case study
20% of your final mark
Instruction
You have been hired (commissioned) to assess the environmentally friendliness of two products and are supposed to conduct a comparative streamlined (small version) LCA.
According to your from the list below, your group case study shall contain the following:
Date Work
March 24- 29
March 29- April 4 Data Collection/Inventory Analysis
April 4- April 7
April 4- meet to divide these sections on lunch break
April 7- meeting edit
April 8 Paper due
Goal Definition: According to ISO14040 guidelines.
the following subcategories: Identification of the Functional Unit, Limitations, Assumptions, Boundaries (Type of LCA (Cradle-to-cradle, Cradle-to-grave, Gate-to-gate etc.) Please sketch your system boundaries and identify involved unit processes with corresponding Input and Output flows.
Data collection: Primary (most like not!) Secondary, then what sources are going to be used. Use excel sheet, or any other data management file to compile and present your data. Please make use of Idemat app.
Only to the midpoint indicator. I want to see nice and comprehensive and comparative graphs and charts that identifies which option is more environmental.
**look at page 13 in LCA report- section 2.2 impact categories

Interpretation incl. clear recommendations.
This is a group project. The final report (Word or pdf file) shall be submitted in designated dropbox. We will be suing the same established teams from the previous groups project.
No restrictions on pages.
To be compared product list: Beef Burger vs. Beyond beef burger

Rubric
Format, APA compliance, proper referencing, writing style, inclusion of graphs and charts 5 points
Goal definition 10 points
Scope definition 25 points
Inventory analysis 35 points
Impact assessment 10 points
Interpretation 15 points
Total 100 points

Needs Improvement
(0% – 49%) Meets expectation
(50% – 69%) Exceeds expectation
(70% – 90%) Excellent and Superb (90%-100%)
Cannot prove solid understanding and application of lecture material- gathered minimal information- does not include most of the instructions requirements- grammar and spelling mistakes- Can prove some understanding and application of lecture material- had between 2-4 grammar and spelling mistakes Can prove solid understanding and application of lecture material- very good and research-based LCA outcome grammar/spelling mistake All attributes from Exceeds Expectation, plus novelty- no mistake in grammar/ spelling- excellent reporting including correct graphs and charts, as well as solid recommendations.

Goal Definition: According to ISO14040 guidelines. (use your imagination!)
intended application of the study- to help people choose the more environmentally friendly burger option
reason for carrying it out- assess the environmentally friendliness of the beef burger and beyond burger
who its for (Raymond) and who is carrying it out (sustainability agent)
will the results be used in comparative assertions released publicly- no
In accordance with the ISO140140 guidelines we have determined that the primary goal of this study is to educate consumers and advance knowledge on the environmental impacts between a standard beef burger and the Beyond Meat burger. The reason for carrying out this research is to assess the differences between the two burgers and identify which one represents the more environmentally friendly option. A secondary goal of this life cycle assessment (LCA) is to assess what areas of the operations line can be improved upon, both for the standard beef burger and for the Beyond Meat burger. The intended audience for the LCA is Professor Raymond Neakpur and our fellow classmates who are undertaking similar research. Our team of sustainability agents for this project consist of Grace Rosas, Valeria Jumbo, Holly Lauryssen, and Nolan Kelly. Due to the nature and scope of this LCA the results will not be used in comparative assertations that are released publicly.
Scope Definition:
The functional unit examined in this study is one 4oz ( pound) uncooked burger patty produced in the United States (Heller & Keoleian, 2018). This the processes involved in producing beef and Beyond Beef patties up until they are ready for packaging. The beef patties are assumed to be frozen, not freshly butchered in store. As noted in Figure 1, packaging, distribution, retail and consumer processes are excluded from this LCA. It is assumed that distribution, retail and consumer use processes have relatively equal environmental impacts; however, it is assumed that the packaging and health impacts of these two products would differ (Heller & Keoleian, 2018). Due to limited time and data, the different impacts of these two processes were not examined in this LCA. Another limitation to this study was that specific data for branded Beyond Beef burger patties was compared to data assumed to be representative of the average industry impacts for producing frozen, beef burger patties in the United States.
Included Processes Excluded Processes
Sourcing, transport & supply of raw materials (ingredients & energy inputs)
Processing operations (building and equipment/machinery operations)
Refrigerated storage prior to distribution
Sourcing, transport & supply of raw materials for packaging
Packaging Operations
Packaging Disposal
Product transport to retailers
Retail stage (I.e. grocery store operations)
Consumer stage (including food preparation and food waste disposal)
Employee travel
Figure 1: System processes included and excluded from the LCA (Heller & Keoleian, 2018).
Figures 2 and 3 provide a visual representation of the systems boundaries for each product based on the included and excluded processes. The figures identify the unit processes, inputs and outputs from the production of beef and Beyond Beef burger patties. As identified in the figures, the outputs of some unit processes end up as wasted by-products, whereas others are valuable inputs that feed into subsequent unit processes and contribute to the final production of the burger patties.

Figure 2: Inputs, outputs and unit processes involved in the production of beef burger patties.

Figure 3: Inputs, outputs and unit processes involved in the production of Beyond Beef burger patties.

Data Collection/Inventory Analysis

References:
Heller, M. C., & Keoleian, G. A. (2018). Beyond Meats beyond burger life cycle assessment: A detailed comparison between a plant-based and an . Regents of the University of Michigan. 3(1). CSS18-10. https://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/publication/CSS18-10.pdf