Rough Set Approach Applied To Environmental Labeling In Sicilian Agri-Food Sector

Actually, in the agri-food sector there has been the springing up of voluntary environmental labelling systems used as instruments for environmental communication and useful to obtain a commercial feed-back of eco-sustainable management. The result is a large variety and it becomes extremely difficult and complex for the operators to choose the most effective label able to explain the values of their environmental involvement and the application of the operating modes of the chosen labelling system. This paper proposes the results of an exploratory survey, carried out through a suitable questionnaire, built up by us, on variables concerning the implementation of environmental labels in small and medium enterprises of agri-food. In order to have a survey as general as possible, this questionnaire has been proposed to some Sicilian companies of various sizes, located in the provinces of Catania and Syracuse. The aim of the analysis is to investigate what are the steps of the production cycle, mandatory and voluntary regulations in the company, type of packaging used, voluntary eco-labelling and certification applied in the considered companies, kind of end-users, category of environmental impacts during different stages of production cycles in the diverse classes of companies interviewed. The answers obtained have been elaborated through the Rough Sets approach, a method of data analysis that allows us, through an easily understandable language, to describe relations in terms of decisional rules (if…, then…), among a series of attributes relating the different managerial and organizational problems and the critical points regarding the subject discussed. Some examples of such rules are shown in this paper as tables in order to point out the most interesting results obtained.