ABSTRACT                      -> Italian Site

This study is made by the collaboration among ENEA, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and the dairy farm "Latteria Agricola Begozzo" in Palidano (Gonzaga, Mantova).

There are two main purposes for this study: a survey of 60 LCA studies carried out in ENEA, meant to point out the challenges and the questions faced in the analysis, and the assessment of environmental impacts for the production process of "Parmigiano-Reggiano" (1 kg packaging).

This Life Cycle Assessment is calculated by software "SimaPro 5.0", using two weighting methods, namely "Eco-indicator 99" and "EPS 2000". In particular, "Eco-indicator 99" is modified in "Eco-indicator 99 (E)CWE" to consider costs and the consumption of resources as water and energy.

The results of the survey say that collecting data takes some problems, as the spread of information especially is felt potentially dangerous by firms and administrations, and also the specific weighting method used has characteristics and assumptions that must be considered to perform a significant interpretation of analysis results.

In the Parmigiano-Reggiano LCA, for "Eco-indicator 99 (E)CWE", the land use (relating to the damage category "Ecosystem Quality") due to the production process of corn and fodder is found to give the largest damage (however, it must be considered the specific way of construction of characterization factors for "land use"); taking "EPS 2000", it splits the total damage among its four damage categories (Human Health, Ecosystem Production Capacity, Abiotic Stock Resources and Biodiversity), diversifing the process contribution in a more sensible way.