Integration of LCA and C-Lean for sustainability assessment of short supply chain related to forest products

The challenge for developing a “green production oriented economy”, is the definition of sustainable production and consumption models which are able to enlarge the current approach oriented to the greening of single production towards the creation of a comprehensive sustainable system, involving and integrating different supply chains in the same geographical district. The creation of short supply chains can help to reduce some relevant impacts (e.g. emissions coming from transport) even if there are some management concerns that has to be addressed, especially about technical feasibility and economic profitability. Sustainability evaluation of this kind of systems needs a comprehensive set of tool for the analysis because it is supposed to address a wide range of questions about environmental sustainability (e.g. availability of natural resources and carrying capacity of the ecosystems that should provide them), economic sustainability (e.g. the economic feasibility of the supply chain and its competitiveness) and social sustainability (e.g. the ability to create new job opportunities and to foster local development). Thus, in the present work the overall process optimisation is based on the integration of two methodologies coming from different disciplines: a strategic production planning tool (Lean thinking), originally developed for the economic optimization of production processes and then enlarged to the optimization of eco-efficiency performances (C-lean) and the Life Cycle Thinking (LCT).