Costa, Tamíris Pacheco da and Gillespie, James and Pelc, Katarzyna and Shenker, Natalie and Weaver, Gillian and Ramanathan, Ramakrishnan and Murphy, Fionnuala (2023) An Organisational-Life Cycle Assessment Approach for Internet of Things Technologies Implementation in a Human Milk Bank. Sustainability, 15 (2). p. 1137. DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021137
Costa, Tamíris Pacheco da and Gillespie, James and Pelc, Katarzyna and Shenker, Natalie and Weaver, Gillian and Ramanathan, Ramakrishnan and Murphy, Fionnuala (2023) An Organisational-Life Cycle Assessment Approach for Internet of Things Technologies Implementation in a Human Milk Bank. Sustainability, 15 (2). p. 1137. DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021137
Costa, Tamíris Pacheco da and Gillespie, James and Pelc, Katarzyna and Shenker, Natalie and Weaver, Gillian and Ramanathan, Ramakrishnan and Murphy, Fionnuala (2023) An Organisational-Life Cycle Assessment Approach for Internet of Things Technologies Implementation in a Human Milk Bank. Sustainability, 15 (2). p. 1137. DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021137
Abstract
Human milk banks (HMB) are responsible for screening and recruiting milk donors with surplus milk to their own infant’s needs, followed by transporting, heat-treating (pasteurising) and microbiologically confirming the donor human milk (DHM) is safe to issue to vulnerable infants. Maintaining the safety and quality of DHM are vital requirements in HMB operations. DHM must be maintained in ideal temperature conditions throughout the whole period—from expression until delivery. In this regard, monitoring technologies (e.g., sensors, Big Data and the Internet of Things) have become a viable solution to avoid food loss, allowing prompt corrective action. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the trade-offs between optimising DHM transportation and the environmental impact of implementing such technologies. The environmental performance was carried out through an Organisational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA). The electricity consumed during milk storage is the main driver for the environmental impacts in this organisation, responsible for up to 82% of the impacts in ionising radiation. The transportation stage and the treatment of discarded DHM were also relevant for ozone formation and marine eutrophication, respectively. Considering the strategy to integrate monitoring technologies to control the temperature conditions during transportation and the reduction of milk discarded by 3%, an environmental impact reduction can be also observed. In some categories, such as global warming, it could avoid around 863 kg of CO2-eq per year. The sensitivity analysis showed that the impacts of the HMB depend highly on the transport distance. In addition, changing the transportation mode from motorcycles to drones or electric vehicles can affect the environmental performance of this organisation. Therefore, human milk transport logistics must be studied in a multidisciplinary way to encompass all possible impacts of these strategies.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | environmental analysis; human milk bank; IoT technologies; milk waste; organisational LCA |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Essex Business School |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 04 Feb 2023 20:01 |
Last Modified: | 30 Oct 2024 20:55 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/34645 |
Available files
Filename: An Organisational-Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA) approach for Internet of Things (IoT) technologies implementation in a human milk bank.pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0