Cristina Campos, researcher at the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF, shares the results of the project presented by Dr. Alba Bala at the 14th International Conference LCAFood 2024, held last month in Barcelona.
At the 14th International Conference LCAFood 2024, the world’s leading forum on sustainable food, Dr Alba Bala, Executive Director of the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF presented a poster showing the results of the CICEP project in which the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF participates. The conference provided an exceptional platform for further discussion on sustainability and innovation in the food and food waste industries.
CICEP Project: Circular Economy Action in Island Regions through the Valorisation of Plastic and Agricultural Waste
Growing concerns about plastic pollution highlight the need for sustainable waste management, especially in regions lacking proper infrastructure like the Canary Islands, Spain. To address this issue, this project focuses on recycling plastics and reusing waste from banana farming, following the principles of a circular economy. Researchers aim to reduce environmental and social impacts by converting banana stalks and plastic caps into valuable products, using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the process from start to finish.
The technology extracts long and short fibres from banana waste to mix with plastic residues. A Social Hotspot analysis identifies potential social risks, while environmental impact is measured using the EF3.0 method and Gabi software. The banana stalk fibre market in the Canary Islands is projected to be worth between 12.24 and 15.30 million euros annually. In this poster entitled “Circular Economy for Food and Environmental Sustainability: Integrating Plastic Recycling and Banana Waste Valorization in the Canary Islands (Spain) through LCA” different environmental scenarios are compared, showing that a 50% long fibre and 50% recycled plastic mix has higher environmental impacts in some indicators compared to a 100% recycled plastic scenario. This work is in the framework of the CICEP project TED2021-131039B-C33, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR project coordinated by the ULPGC and with the participation of partners from the University of Girona (UdG) and ESCI-UPF, as well as the Politecnico di Milano in the calculation of social impacts.
Key partners in this initiative include:
University of Girona (UdG) | LEPAMAP Prodis
University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) | Integrated and Advanced Manufacturing of the School of Industrial and Civil Engineering
UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF
Collaboration with Politecnico Milano | Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale
19/01/2026
ESCI-UPF and Politecnico di Milano publish a joint research paper to help organisations and consumers, respectively, with policy and decision-making through the assessment of the social risks associated with different high-protein food alternatives.
09/12/2025
Researchers Marta Santamaría and Dr Ilija Sazdovski, from the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF, contributed to the newly released WHO guidance “Measuring greenhouse gas emissions in health systems” (World Health Organization, 2025).
01/12/2025
The UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change at ESCI-UPF participated in the event “Life Cycle Management in the Transition Toward a Sustainable Agri-Food Sector”, promoted by the Red Española de ACV was held in Vic (Barcelona) on 19 and 20 November 2025.
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