Canapa industriale e sostenibilità. Un approccio life cycle thinking

Sustainability for companies is no longer just a driver of customer choice, but becomes an essential asset to build reputation and competitive advantage. Among the industrial sectors most attentive to sustainability issues, the agro-food sector is the main one. Despite this, the agri-food sector is one of the most impacting productive sectors today. The need to reverse this route has led to an integrated approach of different strategies: the optimization of current production systems, the reformulation of classic food products, the variation of food habits and the orientation towards new or forgotten food sources. The re-discovery of Cannabis Sativa or industrial hemp as a food source is part of this context. In this study was evaluated the sustainability of a Cannabis Sativa cultivation trough a Life Cycle Thinking approach. At first, the system boundary were defined by a cradle to gate method and the functional unit was fixed at 1 ha of cultivated area. Therefore, all the inputs and the output of the process were evaluated by the Life Cycle Inventory and the Life Cycle Costing.