Circular economy in the olive oil industry: evaluating best practices through life cycle assessment

Olive oil production generates a large volume of waste and by-products, which can be valorised from a circular economy (CE) perspective. Although the ISO 59020 proposed a set of indicators to assess CE, it does not cover the specificities of single sectors. Thus, the present study proposes a complementary approach based on Life cycle assessment (LCA) to capture the environmental impacts associated with CE and a selection of CE indicators to evaluate their intrinsic circularity, providing companies with a useful approach to monitor CE. The approach was tested on an Italian olive oil company. Results show how assessment modelling choices should be coherent with the analysis aim and the type of circularity flow.