## 3 Results
### Spatio-Temporal Environmental Impacts in the EU Milk Supply Chain  
This section outlines the potential impacts of RFID tags on the fresh milk supply chain across different EU regions from 2015 to 2023, as shown in Figures 3-7. Furthermore, Figure 8 summarizes four key impact indicators--climate change, particulate matter, land use, and water resource depletion--chosen for their substantial contributions to the fresh milk supply chain's overall environmental impact. The year 2024 was not included in the temporal analysis due to the unavailability of harmonized and complete datasets across EU countries at the time of modeling. This exclusion was made to ensure methodological consistency and reliable comparability of results across the full 2015-2023 time series. Figure 3 demonstrates that from 2015 to 2023, a general trend of declining environmental impacts could be observed across various categories, including climate change, land use, and water resource depletion in the four northern EU countries (Denmark, Ireland, Finland, and Sweden). This decline suggests that the hypothetical deployment of RFID technology could significantly improve supply chain efficiency, reduce milk waste, and thereby bring about net environmental benefits. The color coding (from pink in 2015 to light pink in 2023) illustrates variations in environmental impacts across different years. For example, between 2016 and 2019, certain categories, such as photochemical ozone formation and acidification, show fluctuations across multiple countries. However, from 2019 onwards, there is a general declining trend, suggesting that despite variations in policy enforcement  
in different years, the gradual promotion and use of RFID technology had a positive impact on controlling environmental impacts. Figure 4: Estimated environmental impacts associated with the use of RFID tags in the fresh milk supply chains across five Western European countries (Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Austria) from 2015 to 2023. Impacts are expressed in units of \(\times 1000\) tonnes of potential impact equivalents. Note: data for Germany were unavailable for the years 2015–2017. Figure 3: Annual potential environmental impacts of RFID tag use in the fresh milk supply chain across four northern EU countries, including Denmark, Ireland, Finland, and Sweden, from 2015 to 2023, across multiple impact categories (Unit: \(\times 1000\) tonnes). Figure 5: Estimated environmental impacts of RFID tag deployment in the fresh milk supply chains of six Central European countries—Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia—covering the period from 2015 to 2023. Values are expressed in units of \(\times\)1000 tonnes of potential impact equivalents. Note: data were unavailable for Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovakia during the years 2015–2017. Figure 6: Estimated environmental impacts associated with RFID tag usage in the fresh milk supply chains of five Southern European countries—Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Malta, and Portugal—excluding Spain, over the period 2015 to 2023. Impact values are expressed in \(\times\)1000 tonnes of potential impact equivalents. Ireland and Finland show relatively high levels of water resource depletion, peaking in 2017 and 2018, followed by a gradual decline. This may be attributed to increased dairy production demand during this period, while the deployment of RFID helped reduce water wastage in production and logistics, resulting in subsequent significant reductions. Denmark and Sweden exhibit notable reductions in mineral, fossil, and renewable resource depletion, especially from 2019 to 2023, indicating that RFID technology could optimize resource management and reduce energy and material waste. In key environmental impact categories, such as climate change, particulate matter, acidification, and water resource depletion, all four countries show significant reductions.