Ricerc@Sapienza

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.