Miah Jamal Hussain, Griffiths Andrew, McNeill Ryan, Halvorson Sharla, Schenker Urs, Espinoza-Orias Namy, Morse Stephen, Yang Aidong, Sadhukhan Jhuma
1Nestlé UK Ltd, Rowan Drive, Fawdon, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE3 3TR UK.
2Centre for Environment and Sustainability (CES), Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH UK.
Int J Life Cycle Assess. 2018;23(9):1744-1760. doi: 10.1007/s11367-017-1391-y. Epub 2017 Oct 4.
The aim of the paper is to assess the role and effectiveness of a proposed novel strategy for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data collection in the food sector and associated supply chains. The study represents one of the first of its type and provides answers to some of the key questions regarding the data collection process developed, managed and implemented by a multinational food company across the supply chain.
An integrated LCI data collection process for confectionery products was developed and implemented by Nestlé, a multinational food company. Some of the key features includes (1) management and implementation by a multinational food company; (2) types of roles to manage, provide and facilitate data exchange; (3) procedures to identify key products, suppliers and customers; (4) LCI questionnaire and cover letter and (5) data quality management based on the pedigree matrix. Overall, the combined features in an integrated framework provide a new way of thinking about the collection of LCI data from the perspective of a multinational food company.
The integrated LCI collection framework spanned across 5 months and resulted in 87 new LCI datasets for confectionery products from raw material, primary resource use, emission and waste release data collected from suppliers across 19 countries. The data collected was found to be of medium to high quality compared with secondary data. However, for retailers and waste service companies, only partially completed questionnaires were returned. Some of the key challenges encountered during the collection and creation of data included lack of experience, identifying key actors, communication and technical language, commercial compromise, confidentiality protection and complexity of multi-tiered supplier systems. A range of recommendations are proposed to reconcile these challenges which include standardisation of environmental data from suppliers, concise and targeted LCI questionnaires and visualising complexity through drawings.
The integrated LCI data collection process and strategy has demonstrated the potential role of a multinational company to quickly engage and act as a strong enabler to unlock latent data for various aspects of the confectionery supply chain. Overall, it is recommended that the research findings serve as the foundations to transition towards a standardised procedure which can practically guide other multinational companies to considerably increase the availability of LCI data.
本文旨在评估一种拟议的新颖策略在食品行业及相关供应链生命周期清单（LCI）数据收集方面的作用和有效性。该研究是同类研究中的首批研究之一，为一家跨国食品公司在整个供应链中开发、管理和实施的数据收集过程的一些关键问题提供了答案。
跨国食品公司雀巢开发并实施了针对糖果产品的综合LCI数据收集过程。一些关键特征包括：（1）由跨国食品公司进行管理和实施；（2）管理、提供和促进数据交换的角色类型；（3）识别关键产品、供应商和客户的程序；（4）LCI问卷和附信；（5）基于谱系矩阵的数据质量管理。总体而言，综合框架中的这些组合特征提供了一种从跨国食品公司的角度思考LCI数据收集的新方式。
综合LCI收集框架历时5个月，从19个国家的供应商收集了原材料、主要资源使用、排放和废物排放数据，产生了87个新的糖果产品LCI数据集。与二手数据相比，收集到的数据质量为中到高。然而，对于零售商和废物服务公司，只返回了部分填写完整的问卷。在数据收集和创建过程中遇到的一些关键挑战包括缺乏经验、确定关键行为者、沟通和技术语言、商业妥协、保密保护以及多层供应商系统的复杂性。针对这些挑战提出了一系列建议，包括供应商环境数据的标准化、简洁且有针对性的LCI问卷以及通过绘图可视化复杂性。
综合LCI数据收集过程和策略展示了跨国公司在快速参与并充当强大推动者以解锁糖果供应链各方面潜在数据方面的潜在作用。总体而言，建议将研究结果作为向标准化程序过渡的基础，该程序可切实指导其他跨国公司大幅提高LCI数据的可用性。
