## 4 Discussion  
### Main Findings  
The analysis, based on comparing two models--one assessing the environmental impact of producing a single RFID tag and the other evaluating the life cycle of one liter of milk ending in landfill--reveals that RFID technology improves supply chain efficiency, leading to reduced milk loss and, consequently, lower GHG emissions, reduced land and water usage, and decreased particulate emissions. In essence, the application of RFID helped maintain the FIFO principle more rigorously, leading to a reduction in product spoilage due to expiration [25]. Based on the conservative assumption of a 2.6% reduction in fresh milk waste through RFID-enabled FIFO enforcement--previously explained in Section 2.1.1--our LCA results reveal that the environmental burdens introduced by RFID tag production are more than offset by the environmental savings from avoided milk waste. The modeling outcomes confirm that even modest reductions in expiration-related losses can result in substantial climate, land use, and water resource benefits across the EU milk supply chain. This underscores RFID's potential not only as a logistical optimization tool, but also as a strategic enabler of environmental performance gains in perishable food systems. These findings reinforce the importance of targeted digital interventions that address specific inefficiencies--such as retail-level FIFO failures--where RFID systems have demonstrated the capacity to deliver measurable impact. For example, the environmental trade-off analysis also shows that RFID leads to a net decrease of approximately 32 g of CO\({}_{2}\)-eq per functional unit, demonstrating significant potential to mitigate climate change impacts. RFID technology significantly reduces environmental burdens associated with food waste savings, as evidenced in several previous studies [10; 26; 27].  
Building upon the above analysis, our study further explored the broader potential of RFID technology to mitigate environmental impacts at the EU level due to milk loss reductions. The overall findings indicate that RFID deployment in the fresh milk supply chain contributes significantly to reducing key environmental impacts, including climate change (with reductions of up to 80,000 tons CO\({}_{2}\)-eq in Germany), water resource depletion (up to 80,000 m\({}^{3}\) water eq), particulate matter (81,083 tons PM2.5 eq), and land use (84,326 tons C deficit). The results underscore the substantial potential of RFID as an enabling technology for achieving sustainability in the dairy sector. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal analysis across the EU regions (Figures 3-7) reveals consistent reductions in environmental impacts over time, suggesting that RFID deployment has a net positive effect on the milk supply chain. Different EU countries exhibit varying levels of impact reduction, highlighting that the effectiveness of RFID tagging is influenced by regional factors such as supply chain structure, policy implementation, and dairy industry practices. Countries like Germany, France, and Finland demonstrate notable progress in reducing emissions and resource use. Additionally, the projected analysis for 2035 indicates that RFID deployment could provide substantial environmental benefits for the EU milk industry. Specifically, RFID technology can improve logistics efficiency and reduce milk wastage, leading to reductions of approximately 3.53 Mt CO\({}_{2}\)-eq in GHG emissions, 3.82 Mt C deficit in land use, and 3.78 million m\({}^{3}\) water eq in water resource consumption. These improvements are critical for meeting sustainability targets, aligning with broader EU environmental policy goals, and ensuring a more sustainable dairy sector.