1.

0 INTRODUCTION

The environmental impacts from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) such as Jati
Food Stall which one of micro type enterprise are often overlooked by decision-makers.
This is because, micro type enterprise difficult to reach such firms, the probability of not
having enough data records and also the likely low number of this enterprise with any
environmental implementation system. Therefore, micro type enterprise most likely give
a lot of problems due to their concern about their surrounding and the impacts to the
environmental problems due to their actions. Therefore, by doing LCA in their business
activities, they can overcome the problems and improve their business in eco-friendly
ways.

According to Guidelines for Life Cycle Assessment A Code of Practice, Life cycle
Assessment (LCA) basically a process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated
with a product, process, or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials
used and also waste released to the environment. In other words, it is to assess the impact
of those energy and materials used and releases to the environment, and to identifying
and evaluating the opportunities to affect environmental improvements. The assessment
includes the entire life cycle of the product, process or activity, encompassing, extracting
and processing raw materials.

Life cycle assessment has emerged as valuable decision support tool for both policy
makers and also industry in assessing the cradle to grave impacts of a product process.
There are three force that driving this evolution which firstly, government regulations are
moving in the direction of life cycle accountability where the notion that manufacturer
is responsible not only for direct production impact but also impacts from product input,
use, transport and disposal. Secondly, business is participating in voluntary initiatives
which contain LCA and product stewardship components such as ISO 14001 which seek
to foster continuous improvement through better environmental management systems.
Lastly, environmental prefer-ability has emerged as a criterion in both consumer markets.

The business that had been chosen to implement the LCA is food service business,
and they are the most favorite choice of students from nearby colleges because of their
delicious foods. Jati Food Stall is a small restaurant located in Taman Jati, Simpang
Empat, Malacca. This food stall is being run by a Malay owner and an Indian Owner.
They sell food items for breakfast and lunch for the area people and college students. This
is because the size of the business is small and they sell food for around 50-60 people per
day. They cook food in a small amount and the profit they gain is in a small range. They
used to sell the traditional foods of Malays and Indians. The survey will be held on week
10 to week 11 according to academic calendar.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this approach are:

To support (SMEs) in their business development by expanding their horizons

beyond the sphere

To identify new areas for improvement and promotion of the products and service
offered

To analyze the feedback from the Q&A form to indicate the real status of this type
of business in environmental aspects.

3.0 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Jati Food Stall faces problems due to preventing the pollution in terms of air, water,
food waste and solid waste management. This is due to increasing of customers that
frequently comes and eat there. The number of workers might not enough to handle the
customers, cleansing, cooking and so forth. Because of this premise located at the
residential place, there are customers complain due to un-hygiene tables, floor and solid
waste management. There are also uninvited rodent and pests like flies, rats and
cockroach due to dirty drainage system. The worker basically, do not treat the kitchen
residue wastewater and discharge the wastewater to the nearby drainage. The drainage is
connected along with the residential drain and could probably can cause blockage due to
improper discharge of the wastewater. Last but not least, the air pollution might be
occurred from the nearby drainage as well as improper ventilation of air from the cooking
activities.

4.0 COMPANY HISTORY

4.1 Background of Company

Jati Food stall is located at No. 1/12, Jalan Tenggiri, Taman Jati Indah, 78000
Alor Gajah, Melaka. The owner of the Malay food stall is Puan Hajah Maimunah bt
Abdul Hamid and the owner of the Indian food stall is Puan Kamatchi a/p Samy. This
micro-type enterprise has 3 employees for Indian food stall and 4 employees for
Malay food stall. Puan Maimunah sells Malays traditional foods for breakfast, lunch
and dinner while, Puan Kamichi sells Indian traditional foods also for breakfast,
lunch and dinner. Both food stall operating business hour is 8 hours a day, operates
for 6 days per week, and for every Sunday is they will be closed. Puan Maimunah
food stall gain profit about RM 4,000 per month while for Puan Kamichi, she earns
profit about RM 5,000 per month.

4.2 Functional Unit

- Food production per week which is kg/week.
- Food Waste per week which is kg/week.

4.3 System Boundary from Cradle to Grave

Diagram 1: Process Flow Diagram of the Jati Food Stall Activities

Diagram above shows the process flow activities from cradle to grave of the
Jati Food Stall service. Starting from the environmental sources, where the owner will
order all the ingredients that needed such as green vegetables, meats, fish and others
cooking things such as cooking oil, salt, sugar and so forth. After that, the ingredients will
be delivered via transportation by lorry or car. At this stage the usage of transportation
will produce air pollution as well as energy consumption such as fuels.

Next, the ingredient need to be cleaned and rinse in order to make sure it is
clean from any unwanted chemical or substances. The climax process is the processing
the food where the employees will have activities like cutting, mixing, steaming, boiling,
and frying the foods. At this stages, air pollution will be generating from the cooking
activities, the use of a large amount of heat used to prepared the food in a short time and
also the use of water tap to clean the fry pan used after and before cooking which the
wastewater will be discharge at nearby drain. After that, the cooked food will be served to
the customers. At this stage they used plastic plate and plastic glass with plastic straw to
serve the foods and drinks. Lastly, to clean up all dishes, the water tap is used again and
generate water pollution, food waste as well as solid waste such as plastic straw and
tissue paper.

5.0 DISCUSSION

The analysis is carried out on Jati Food Stall. The main practical objective of the
project is to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in their business development,
by expanding their horizons beyond the sphere of their operation and identifying new
areas for the improvement and promotion of the products and services they offer. The
specific objective of the analysis on the environmental impact was an attempt to answer
the question of whether environmental LCA is a good management tool for this type of
business.

In order to assess the effectiveness of the project and the effectiveness of the
implementation of LCA, a survey will be conducted on the owner of the food stall where
the implementation work will be fully assessed. The survey will be conducted using
individual in-depth interviews. Questions to the representatives of the business will be
referred both to aspects of their functioning in the market (characteristics of a company,
its market share, management systems, environmental policy, suppliers and clients) and
the operation of their environmental service (assessment of its effectiveness, motivation
and difficulties in its implementation), as well as opinions on the potential applications of
LCA in their current operations.

6.0 METHODOLOGY

There are two main methods that will be used to analyze the life cycle of the food
stall business. First is survey and then will be followed by product assessment matrix.

1.

Survey
In order to answer these questions, a survey will be conducted on the food stall

business that participating in the project (Kurczewski Part 1: Background and framework).
The research is based on individual in-depth interviews (Boyce and Neale 2006), while
respondents are representatives of the business or persons directly connected with the
implementation of LCA in individual business. A questionnaire for the environmental
service assessment was divided into four sections:

Section 1: The main goal of this part of the questionnaire is to obtain a picture of a
company and its market position. Questions in Part 1 focused, on the one hand, on
general issues, such as name, number of employees, organizational and legal structure
and scope of business, while on the other hand, they referred to information on
management systems and allocation of powers (in relation to major areas of business), the
characteristics of suppliers (scope of business, size of the organization and possibility of
subsidy) and clients (institutional versus individual, scope and size of the institutions) and
the business's market share.

Section 2: The second part of the questionnaire concerned environmental services

implemented in a company and included issues related to the object and scope of the
LCA, the positions of people who agreed to carry out the study and supervised its
progress, the method of communication with a company, the procedure for collecting
inventory data and motives for implementing the service. Here, some of the information
is also known to persons responsible for providing the service in a company, it will be
entered in advance, before an interview.

Section 3: This section contain questions designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the
analyses from the point of view of the company. Representatives of the food stall will be
evaluated the usefulness of LCA results and determine their actual or possible
applications. They also will give feedback whether the LCA conducted changed their
management models, conduct or thinking about their products. In addition, they can
identify issues that caused most problems in the implementation of the environmental
service.

Section 4: The last part of the questionnaire is designed to obtain information as to

whether and to what extent the company undertook activities related to environmental
protection or environmental management. Preliminary information of this type will be
obtained from the companies prior to the classification of the companies for different
areas of the project.

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6.1 Product Assessment Matrix

The Environmentally Responsible Product Assessment Matrix will be used to

determine the significant environmental impacts and its effect to environment and human
health. The five life cycle stages of Jati Food Stall are:

Resources Extraction

Product Manufacture (Cleaning and Cooking)

Product Delivery

Product Consumption

Recycling and Disposal (Human Excretion)

The four Environmental Stressors are:

Primary Energy Use

Water Use

Food Residues

Material Choice

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Env.Concern
LCA
stages

Electric
ity
Consu
mption

Resourc
es
Extracti
on

Food
Material
Residue Choice

Human
Health
And
Safety

Water
Use

Climate
change

Gas
Consump
tion

Resources
Extraction
Product
Manufacture
Product
Delivery
Product
Consumption
Recycling
and Disposal
Table 1: Shows the Matrix for Assessment of Food Stall Life Cycle Stages.

In this approach, we will study the resources extraction, product manufacture, product
delivery, product consumption, recycling and disposal and assigns to each element of the
matrix an integer rating from 0 (highest impact, a very negative evaluation) to 4 (lowest
impact, an exemplary evaluation).

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7.0 GANTT CHART AND MILES STONE

Month 2016
Activities
Finding suitable SMEs
for the study
Writing proposal

March
W5
W6

W7

W8

April
W9

W10

W11

W12

May
W13

W14

W15

Submit draft proposal

Submit final draft with
correction
Do survey at the firm
Writing report survey
Submit final report
survey with correction

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W16

8.0 CONCLUSION

The conclusion that can be obtained from this project is, we can analyze whether the
small medium company, Jati Food Stall is ready to accept Life Cycle Thinking and take
responsibility for environmental issues beyond their own business. The experience of
LCA implementation in this small and medium size company will give reason to be
moderately optimistic about our environmental issues. The situation might seem to be not
perfect but it is potential to exist. The survey by interview and analysis by using matrix
will give a fairly good evaluation to the usefulness of LCA results, the owner of the food
stall will be able to see a clear picture of possibilities for using LCA in their future
activities. An intensive information of LCA will be able to change the environmental
impacts and would facilitate the process of implementing LCA in SMEs.

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