Italian experiences in Life Cycle Assessment of olive oil: a survey and critical review

The aim of this paper is to present a survey and critical review of Italian studies concerning Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) applications in companies producing olive oil. The surveyed studies are based on the results of the latest Na-tional mapping produced by the Subgroup “Oils” in the Working Group on “Food and Agro-industry” in the Italian LCA Network. The Italian LCA studies of olive oil have developed over ten years; the first Italian studies date back to 2000, and since then, their number has progressively increased. In this paper a comparative analysis of the surveyed studies is used to perform a critical review to highlight common features and/or differences of the fundamental aspects of Italian LCA studies. The critical review, furthermore, enables us to identify application problems and critical areas and related methodological solutions and outline the “best practices” for the sector.