Learning objectives
The course aims to provide the technical knowledge to design in a circular economy perspective and to calculate the impacts on the environment of food products and processes. Students will be able to apply the knowledge acquired during the course both in everyday life and in a business context, and to assess the environmental impact of a product of their choice.
Prerequisites
None: the course will start from the fundamentals so that all students start at the same level.
Course unit content
The course will begin with a practical introduction to environmental sustainability: the impact and role of food industries in managing and optimising the life cycle of products will be analysed. Particular attention will be paid to combating climate change, optimising water resource management, and the use of renewable energy sources.
Responsible consumption and production methods will be analysed, learning how to design to reduce the impact on the Planet.
The voluntary tools available to companies for assessing and certifying environmental sustainability will be analysed, examining their reference standards, characteristics, examples and practical cases. Finally, laboratory exercises will be conducted on the Simapro software for quantifying the environmental impact of real cases from the food industry.
Full programme
The environmental goals of Agenda 2030 put into practice: the role of food industries
Designing for environmental sustainability: minimising consumption of materials, energy and toxicity, optimising renewability, product life, disassembly.
Methods and tools for environmentally sustainable design and analysis, such as: Life Cycle Assessment, Carbon Footprint, Water Footprint, environmental product certification (EPD).
Focus on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): phases, reference standards, advantages, limitations.
Practical examples of LCA analyses already carried out on food packaging.
Laboratory exercises on software: students will carry out LCA analysis of packaging and machinery related to the food industry.
Bibliography
Slides provided by the lecturer which, lesson by lesson, will be uploaded to the course's Elly page.
For students interested in deepening the topics covered in class, I recommend the book " Design per la sostenibilità ambientale. Progettare il ciclo di vita dei prodotti " (Carlo Vezzoli), second edition, Zanichelli.
Teaching methods
Theoretical lectures, interspersed with cooperative learning in which students will carry out practical tasks to assimilate the concepts by collaborating with their classmates.
Two completely anonymous closed-response quizzes will be given, one in the middle and one at the end of the course, to help students prepare for the written exam.
Laboratory exercises will be carried out with the Simapro software, the most widely used in the world for Life Cycle Assessment.
Assessment methods and criteria
The final examination will be conducted in a collegial format involving all three modules of the course. In particular, the examination will include a written part with closed-ended questions covering the topics discussed in all the modules of the course and an oral part related to the presentation and discussion of a group project in relation to the contents of the course.
The written part will consist of 8 closed-ended questions for the module "Innovative materials for design" (3 CFU), 8 closed-ended questions for the module "Assessment tools for the sustainability of the food system" (3 CFU) and 16 closed-ended questions for the module "Product development methodologies and integrated virtual design" (6 CFU). The final grade for the written part is based on 30: each correct answer corresponds to 1 point, the final grade for the written part that exceeds 30/30 will possibly count towards the award of honours in the overall final exam grade. The written test is considered passed if the number of correct answers exceeds, in each module, a threshold determined as follows: 5 correct answers in the "Innovative materials for design" module, 5 correct answers in the "Assessment tools for food system sustainability" module and 8 correct answers in the "Product development methodologies and integrated virtual design" module.
The oral part will consist of an oral presentation by the group (of 15-25 minutes) aimed at describing a project carried out as a group and with the objective of analysing, disassembling, and functionally dismantling a kitchen appliance with the aim of redesigning it in whole or in part according to the approaches and objectives discussed in the teaching modules, reducing its environmental impact and also realising a formal and/or functional prototype using the appropriate additive techniques. The oral presentation will be followed by oral questions from the lecturers relating to discussing some aspects of the project in more detail and investigating how the course content was applied during the project. The final grade for the oral part will be determined as a weighted average of the partial grades of the individual lecturers, using the number of CFUs relating to the individual modules as weights. The oral examination is considered passed if each lecturer awards a partial mark, relative to his/her module, of at least 18/30.
The final mark for the examination is obtained as the arithmetic mean of the final mark for the written part and the final mark for the oral part.
Other information
For any additional information, clarification or curiosity, please contact the course lecturer by email.
2030 agenda goals for sustainable development
Yes
