Author(s)

G. PETIT, G. YANNOU-LE BRIS, G. TRYSTRAM & A. LALLMAHOMED

Abstract

To tackle sustainability issues, food value chain actors have to study the nature and objectives of the sustainable performance they want to achieve, both individually and also for the value chain as a whole. But they have different interests, goals and strategies. Consequently, if they want to cooperate on a shared device because this represents a possible solution to improve the value chain sustainability, they need to find a way to meet a minimum level of each actor expectations. This case study is about possibilities for actors of a pork value chain representative of one type of French production to cooperate in sharing sustainability improvement solutions. The sustainable impacts of the value chain comprising a shared methanation plant with externalization of 3% of heat and 1% of electricity produced are described and analyzed. The multicriteria evaluation of the value chain is based on a life cycle analysis model with associated environmental and social indicators. The behavior of the methanation plant is simulated using Methasim tool and the input/output flows of the software are bridged to the LCA model. A focus is made on comparing the sustainable performance of two scenarios (standard i.e. without methanation plant and with shared methanation plant) and on confronting results with respective expectations of various players of the value chain in terms of sustainable performance. Is sharing a methanation plant a good solution for the economic actors of the value chain? How to create cooperation between the actors of a value chain in order to increase sustainability of their products and practices? The results and analysis will focus on each actor’s contribution to the sustainable footprint and values destroyed or created. New intermediate solutions can be then proposed. The discussion is about methodological ways to facilitate the cooperation and the data flows to be exchanged between value chain actors.

Keywords

Actors, assessment, cooperation, food, indicators, sustainability, value chain