ITACAFood: A Model to Certificate the Sustainability of Food Processing Facilities

Abstract

In this paper is proposed a specific model for assessing the sustainability level for building structures in the food facilities based on the ITACA protocol deriving from the SBTools model. The evaluation models currently defined at international level are developed to determine the level of building sustainability mainly in terms of energy and environmental loads generated by the structure itself. But in the food industry, building structures must comply with specific needs that often do not take into account the well-being occupants but also, and in many cases exclusively, the product that must comply with certain production protocols that are indispensable for production and typicality of the product. For these reasons, the criteria in the ITACA protocol have been added by those specific to the food industry necessary for assessing the sustainability level. The proposed method was applied in the Dolciaria Monardo (Italy) a food factory in southern Italy. The final scores evaluation showed a variation between the models, equal to 14% in fact that relative to proposed model ITACAFood is equal to 1.23, while that relative to the application of the ITACA protocol adopted by Calabria Region is equal to 1.43.