Proposição de um índice para mensurar a circularidade no contexto alimentar

Abstract

In the last decades, the world population has been growing constantly, with estimates of reaching almost 9.7 billion people in 2050, increasing concerns about hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity and highlighting the need to guarantee access to food and ensure that they are nutritious and capable of meeting human needs. In counterpart, there is food waste. Estimates show that a third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted, which equates to approximately 1.3 billion tons per year. The more food is wasted, the greater the productive demand and, therefore, the greater the environmental impacts caused by the food production. To minimize these impacts, it is important to promote actions to reduce waste, such as the Circular Economy (CE). Therefore, this research goals to develop a circularity index for food, in order to quantify, monitor and evaluate the transition from a linear food production and consumption system to a circular economy. For this, 66 already existing circularity indices were evaluated, looking for tools and information that could support the index proposed here. Using characteristics of 4 indices selected from this analysis and also the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to generate the necessary factors for calculation from the characterization of environmental impacts, an equation was developed that portrays the circularity index for food, which determines the circularity according to the amount of waste destined for six different scenarios. The result showed that it is possible to use CE and LCA in a complementary way, generating a robust and unprecedented tool for application in the food context, in addition to highlighting the importance of encouraging the redistribution and reuse of food, reducing waste and waste generation.