Julia Chatterton

Unilever · Research & Development

Oil palm cultivation has become one of the world’s most important drivers of land use change in the tropics causing biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. The impact of climate change and rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere on oil palm productivity is not well understood. If environmental change leads to declining palm oil yields i...

Reforestation is an important strategy for nature-based climate solutions and identifying carbon storage potential of different locations is critical to its success. Applying average carbon values from forest inventories ignores the spatial heterogeneity in forest carbon and the effects of forest edges on carbon storage degradation. Here we show ho...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from direct land use change (LUC) in GHG footprint studies of crops are often estimated using national land use change statistics, as in many cases the exact location of crop cultivation and land use history is unknown. As such, these studies neglect spatial variability in land use change (amount and configuration) at...

Indian households connected to improved water sources still need to purify their water before drinking. In this study, environmental impacts of three purification options in urban India were compared: (a) boiling water, (b) bottled, purified water, and (c) purifying the water with a domestic reverse-osmosis (RO) device. Primary data for the manufac...

Advances in satellite remote sensing and the wealth of earth observation (EO) data now available have improved efforts toward determining and quantifying historical land use and land cover (LULC) change. Satellite imagery can overcome the absence of accurate records of historical land use; however, the variability observed in the case study regions...

The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind,...

Food production is a major contributor to a country's environmental burden. However, the burdens associated with individual foods vary significantly due to differing agricultural systems and locations, post-harvest storage, manufacturing and transport requirements. Dietary choices can therefore have a significant impact on the overall burdens assoc...

Research and innovation have considerable, currently unquantified potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by, for example, increasing energy efficiency. Furthermore, the process of knowledge transfer in itself can have a significant impact on reducing emissions, by promoting awareness and behavioural change. The concept of the ‘carbon brainpri...

A systems-life cycle assessment approach to modelling the impact of improvements in cattle health on greenhouse gas emissions - Volume 6 Issue 1 - A. Williams, J. Chatterton, G. Hateley, A. Curwen, J. Elliott

The livestock industry is a significant component of the agricultural and rural sectors in the UK. Grassland for livestock accounts for almost half of the terrestrial surface of the UK and almost two-thirds of its managed agricultural land. It therefore accounts for a major proportion of rural employment and income and provides many landscape and b...

This project was undertaken for the FSA as part of a wider programme of work by Cranfield University for a partnership of Defra, FSA and eight other partners, from 2012 to 2014, to deliver a package of pan-government futures research activities including regular horizon scanning, risk prioritisation/analysis, medium to large scale foresight studies...

1. Key findings This study examines the land use and greenhouse gas implications of UK food consumption change away from carbon intensive products. It shows that the UK agricultural land base can support increased consumption of plant-based products arising from the reduced consumption of livestock products. A 50% reduction in livestock product...

The production and supply of food currently accounts for 20–30% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK and the government and nongovernmental organisations are seeking to reduce these environmental burdens. Local authorities all over UK establish community farms with the aim to produce more sustainable food for citizens. This study used enviro...

This work determined the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the UK food system by 70% from a 2005 baseline. A food consumption-orientated inventory was produced including primary agricultural production, food processing, distribution, preparation and disposal. Land use change (LUC) used a top-down approach. The inventory used m...