Measuring circularity and sustainability in Italian agri-food systems: the CIRCULAGRIS project

Agricultural sustainability lies at the core of numerous European Union initiatives, including the Common Agricultural Policy and the "Farm to Fork Strategy". The latter is pivotal to the implementation of the new European Green Deal (EGD), where the Circular Economy (CE) paradigm has been firmly integrated into both policy and business practices. In Italy, agriculture holds a prominent position; indeed, in 2019, Italian agriculture was in first place amongst the EU28 countries in terms of added value and third in terms of production value (ISTAT, 2020). It is thus essential to evaluate specific CE practices within the Italian agrifood sector in order to determine their actual sustainability performance. The focus should not solely be on circularity but on the broader sustainability implications of these practices (Scandurra et al., 2023). In this regard, scholars emphasise the importance of assessing sustainability impacts at both company (Roos Lindgreen et al., 2020; Roos Lindgreen et al., 2021) and inter-firm levels (Walker et al., 2021). A circular supply chain may not always be the most sustainable choice and sustainability impacts should be assessed on a case-by-case basis (Schaubroeck, 2020). When it comes to the agri-food sector, life cycle-based assessment methodologies, i.e., Life Cycle Assessment (ISO, 2006a; ISO, 2006b), Social Life Cycle Assessment (UNEP, 2020) and Life Cycle Costing (Hunkeler et al., 2008; Swarr et al., 2011) are considered suitable for evaluating sustainability (Notarnicola et al., 2015; Petti et al., 2018). However, further development of life cycle-based methodologies is necessary for assessing CE practices in an effective way (Esposito et al., 2020). This project aims to understand the relationship between circularity and sustainability in this sector, identifying metrics and exploring the impact of circular practices on sustainability.