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Effect of eating seasonal on the carbon footprint of Swedish vegetable consumption
Abstract
The advice on climate-smart food consumption given by authorities and NGOs includes the recommendation to “eat seasonal foods”. However, no clear definition of seasonality is given in the literature. This study investigated how the carbon footprint of yearly per capita consumption of tomatoes and carrots in Sweden was affected by seasonal consumption according to interpretations of seasonality found in communications from Swedish NGOs and authorities. The results showed that the carbon footprint of carrot and tomato consumption was strongly affected by consuming according to either a strict definition of seasonality, which excluded both production in heated greenhouses and long-distance transport, or a definition which only allowed Swedish produce. The reduction potential was approximately 60%, but the consumption pattern was also highly restrictive, with e.g. tomatoes only being consumed during three months according to the strictest definition. The reduction from eating only Swedish products was not due primarily to characteristics commonly associated with seasonal production (shorter transport or low energy demand in cultivation), but to the use of renewable fuel instead of fossil energy. The methodology chosen in this study resulted in carrots having a more distinct season than tomatoes, since the energy use for heating greenhouses (which are needed all year round in cold climates) was evenly allocated across all tomatoes harvested during one year, while the carbon footprint of carrots was assumed to increase with time due to increased energy demand for storage and storage losses. Hence, modern production techniques challenge the traditional concepts of seasonality. On an absolute scale including the whole food sector, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from eating seasonal is limited, as emissions from vegetable production make up a minor proportion of the total emissions from food consumption.
... For greenhouses located in Sweden, Anders et al. (2006) estimated a GWP of about 2.7 kg CO 2 -eq/kg while several studies (Karlsson, 2011;Röös and Karlsson, 2013;Bosona and Gebresenbet, 2018) reported a GWP of roughly 0.3 kg CO 2eq per kg of tomato from heated greenhouses. The greatest contribution to the impact in these studies was electricity consumption, which is in line with the results of this study. ...
... The greatest contribution to the impact in these studies was electricity consumption, which is in line with the results of this study. Unheated greenhouses reported a lower GWP at about 0.21 kg CO 2 -eq/kg (Karlsson, 2011;Röös and Karlsson, 2013). The . ...
... results of this study are higher than open field farming but lower than greenhouses in Sweden with economic allocation. Tomatoes from heated greenhouses in the Netherlands have a GWP of 0.95 and 2 kg CO 2 -eq/kg according to Torrellas et al. (2012) and Röös and Karlsson (2013), respectively. For Spain, unheated tunnel greenhouses reported 0.25 kg CO 2eq/kg (Torrellas et al., 2012) and heated greenhouses at 0.54 kg CO 2 -eq per kg (Röös and Karlsson, 2013). ...
Alternative food production technologies are being developed to meet the global increase in population and demand for a more sustainable food supply. Aquaponics, a combined method of vegetable and fish production, is an emerging technology that is widely regarded as sustainable. Yet, there has been limited research on its environmental performance, especially at a commercial scale. In this study, life cycle analysis (LCA) was used to assess the environmental impacts of food produced by an urban commercial aquaponic system located next to a retail store in a cold-weather region (Östersund, Sweden). The functional unit (FU) used is 1 kg of fresh produce, which includes cucumber ( Cucumis sativus ), tomatoes ( Solanum Lycopersicum ), and Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ). The system boundary is set from cradle to farm or retailer's gate due to the proximity of the aquaponic system to the retail store. Results were reported employing eight environmental impact categories, including global warming potential (GWP), marine eutrophication (MEU), and cumulative energy demand (CED). According to contribution analysis, the main hotspots of the system are electricity, CO 2 enrichment, and heating. Potential areas to mitigate the impact of these parameters were highlighted in this study, including the establishment of symbiotic links to utilize urban waste and by-products. The impact per vegetable or fish produced was partitioned using energy and economic allocation and compared to other common cultivation methods. The yearly harvest from the aquaponic system was also compared to importing these food items from other European countries which showed lower annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the aquaponic system.
... One interpretation of seasonal food used in many articles is closely linked to the consumption of food produced locally, including the presumed environmental gain of less transportation [21,[25][26][27][28][29]. Another understanding is the growing of vegetables and fruits in their "natural growing season" without using greenhouses [30]. ...
... In season Linked only to natural food availability e.g., "uncertainties of seasonality and weather in production planning is the primary requirement of economically viable farming" [31] [ 14,21,25,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] Produced in Season Linked simultaneously to availability and type of production. Food that is produced in their natural growing season, without high energy use for climate modification. ...
... Food that is produced in their natural growing season, without high energy use for climate modification. e.g., "The range of fresh products is made available either through imports from countries where the growing season is longer or occurs at a different time of the year or through energy-demanding technologies that extend the normal growing season, predominantly heated greenhouses" [29] [ 15,17,19,30,44] Local Seasonal Linked simultaneously to availability, location, and type of production. The food is produced and consumed within geographical proximity. ...
This article aims to review the current literature pertaining to the effects of eating local seasonal food on sustainable consumption. To this end, we examined definitions of seasonal and local food, the methodological approaches adopted to study the impact of seasonal consumption on sustainability, and sustainability dimensions investigated in journal articles. Highlighting what seasonal and local means, it is crucial to evaluate the effect of the consumption of these foods on sustainability. A systematic review of the literature was conducted using Scopus and Clarivate’s Web of Science database in line with the recommendations from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Our findings suggest that the concept of local seasonality provides relevant information to the study of sustainable consumption. However, for better use of this concept, it is crucial to define what is local. At this point, regulation of labels based on geographic proximity or political boundaries proves pertinent.
... This study was based on organic tomato production in Southern Sweden. Although it has shorter growing season, tomato is produced mainly in Southern region of Sweden (R€ o€ os and Karlsson, 2013). Under conventional production in Sweden, Karlsson (2011) reported tomato yield of 11 kg/m2 for unheated greenhouse condition and 57 kg/m2 for heated greenhouse condition. ...
... Major materials for greenhouse construction include concrete, steel, aluminum, glass, and nylon (See Section 2.3). Renewable energy sources (woodchips) are used for heating greenhouses (R€ o€ os and Karlsson, 2013). Resources could be used efficiently when crops produced in greenhouse. ...
... As noted from primary data survey, total loss during harvesting, sorting and packaging could vary from 1% to 20% and 5% has been assumed for this analysis. Losses during transport to wholesaler and handling at warehouse could vary from 1% to 5% (R€ o€ os and Karlsson, 2013;H€ ogberg, 2010). For DTVC case, additional loss of 5% has been considered during preparation for drying i.e. 0.90 t of fresh tomato would be available for drying at wholesaler per FU and about 0.072 t dried tomato could be delivered to retail per FU (see Table 4). ...
Improving sustainability of organic tomato value chains requires increase of production and reduction of losses and related environmental burden. This paper presents the study conducted on organic tomato produced and consumed in Sweden. Using life cycle analysis (LCA) method with SimaPro8.2 LCA software, the cumulative energy demand (CED) and global warming potential (GWP100) were investigated within the system boundary of cradle-to-consumer gate. The system was modeled as fresh tomato value chain (FTVC) and dried tomato value chain (DTVC). The functional unit (FU) was 1 ton of fresh product at farm that will be delivered to customer either as fresh or dried tomato. Sensitivity analysis was done considering changes in drying energy consumption. The results indicated that calculated CED values were 44.58 GJ and 49.40 GJ per functional unit for FTVC and DTVC respectively. Similarly, GWP100 values were 547.13 kg CO2 eq and 467.44 kg CO2 eq for FTVC and DTVC respectively. Agricultural production has been identified as hot-spot stage in both FTVC and DTVC cases. Next to agricultural stage, post-harvest and transport stages have been hot-spot stages for energy demand and climate impact respectively. Energy for greenhouse heating and irrigation as well as material for greenhouse construction contributed to the high impact of tomato cultivation stage. Packaging and drying activities at post-harvest stage and fuel consumption at transport stage contributed more to environmental burden. The drying process increased the energy demand while it reduced climate change impact. The drying process also could reduce the product losses and increase the product shelf life. This could improve the sustainability of locally produced organic tomato value chains, especially if integrated with renewable energy sources.
... The waste treatment stage accounts for about a quarter of tomatoes CF, and SWF comes mainly from the cultivation stage due to discarded structures (concrete and steel) and organic waste. The latter ranged from 20 to 60 kg/t of fruit, similar to the 22-50 kg/t of fruit reported by Cellura et al. (2012) and Garofalo et al. (2017), but higher than the 5% fruit loss found by Röös and Karlsson (2013). Small amount of organic waste was generated during the post-cultivation phase, which is consistent with other studies (e.g., Röös and Karlsson, 2013;Liu et al., 2019). ...
... The latter ranged from 20 to 60 kg/t of fruit, similar to the 22-50 kg/t of fruit reported by Cellura et al. (2012) and Garofalo et al. (2017), but higher than the 5% fruit loss found by Röös and Karlsson (2013). Small amount of organic waste was generated during the post-cultivation phase, which is consistent with other studies (e.g., Röös and Karlsson, 2013;Liu et al., 2019). Packaging materials and empty containers, bottles and other plastic items contributed to the volume of waste (SWF) but had little impact on the CF (e.g., Torrellas et al., 2012;Liu et al., 2019) due to rigorous waste management practices in the region. ...
Worldwide growing demand for food, alongside limited resources and accelerating environmental changes, suggests that future global food security may rely at least partially on unconventional land and production systems, such as built infrastructure located in desert areas. This paper analyses the environmental footprints (water, soil, carbon, material, solid waste, and ecological) of a tomato production system in passive greenhouses, a low-tech growing structure with no artificial heating or cooling. We collected data from 10 farms in the hyper-arid region of the Central Arava, Israel. Our analysis covers the four stages of production up to the overseas export destination and investigates the system's direct and indirect biophysical interactions. The average footprint of a ton of tomatoes is 1,040 kg/t (Material footprint), 94 m ³ /t (Water footprint), 72 m ² /t (Land footprint), 952 kgCO 2 eq/t (Carbon footprint), 442 kg/t solid waste (SWF) and 243 g ha/t (Ecological footprint). Our results indicate that the environmental hotspots can be attributed to universal factors–water production, fossil energy, fertilizers, structures, and road transport, alongside case-specific elements–soil, evaporation, location and the human-factor. Some differences were found when examining the full range of footprints within farms. No correlation was found between the farm's yields and materials inputs or carbon footprint, pointing to the human factor. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the local production system and proposed some improvement strategies.
... However, without proper price signals reflecting the carbon footprint of products, information is necessary to drive these choices. Pilot initiatives for carbon footprint labelling on products have been launched in 13 countries, with limited demonstrated success so far (Rogissart et al., 2019b). An alternative to carbon footprint labelling is to provide information on the carbon footprint of food quality schemes (FQS) which consumers already recognize. ...
... The carbon footprints of fresh organic tomatoes and their reference, 18 and 34 kgCO 2 e ton -1 respectively, are lower than the literature range of 150-6,000 kgCO 2 e ton -1 (Clune et al., 2017). This large literature range is focused tomatoes grown in heated greenhouses where most of the carbon footprint comes from greenhouse construction and heating (Almeida et al., 2014;Röös and Karlsson, 2013). Open field Italian tomatoes are thus logically below the range. ...
The carbon and land footprint of 26 certified food products – geographical indications and organic products and their conventional references are assessed. This assessment goes beyond existing literature by (1) designing a calculation method fit for the comparison between certified food and conventional production, (2) using the same calculation method and parameters for 52 products – 26 Food Quality Schemes and their reference products – to allow for a meaningful comparison, (3) transparently documenting this calculation method and opening access to the detailed results and the underlying data, and (4) providing the first assessment of the carbon and land footprint of geographical indications. The method used is Life Cycle Assessment, largely relying on the Cool Farm Tool for the impact assessment. The most common indicator of climate impact, the carbon footprint expressed per ton of product, is not significantly different between certified foods and their reference products. The only exception to this pattern are vegetal organic products, whose carbon footprint is 16% lower. This is because the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from the absence of mineral fertilizers is never fully offset by the associated lower yield. The climate impact of certified food per hectare is however 26% than their reference and their land footprint is logically 24% higher. Technical specifications directly or indirectly inducing a lower use of mineral fertilizers are a key driver of this pattern. So is yield, which depends both on terroir and farming practices. Overall, this assessment reinforces the quality policy of the European Union: promoting certified food is not inconsistent with mitigating climate change.
... For example, there is evidence that Swedish produced tomatoes have a lower carbon footprint than Dutch tomatoes. An important aspect in this case is, however, that Swedish greenhouses are heated with biofuels while Dutch ones are generally not [46]. In addition, Swedish local authorities may be interested in locally produced food, but there are sometimes difficulties in actually procuring it [45]. ...
... Life cycle assessments are commonly used when investigating how resource utilization within agricultural production can be improved. Results from these types of studies include positive effects of using Swedish rather than imported feed [43], consuming locally produced food rather than imported [46,66], and growing vegetables in plant factories instead of greenhouses [67] for global warming potential and eutrophication. In contrast, organic milk production [55] and using crop rotations with grain and grass/clover ley [68] have both positive and negative effects on these metrics. ...
The production of food can have large impacts on sustainable development in relation to various socio-ecological dimensions, like climate change, the environment, animal welfare, livestock epidemiology, and the economy. To achieve a sustainable food production system in Sweden, an integrated approach that considers all five of these dimensions, and all parts of the food production chain, is necessary. This paper systematically reviewed the literature related to food production in Sweden, especially in association with resource distribution and recycling logistics, and identified potential sustainability interventions and assessed their effects according to the five dimensions. Participation of stakeholders across the food production chain contributed with the focus of the literature search and subsequent synthesis. In general, there were synergies between the sustainability interventions and their effect on climate change and the environment, while there often were trade-offs between effects on the economy and the other dimensions. Few interventions considered effects on animal welfare or livestock epidemiology and few studies dealt with resource distribution and recycling logistics. This indicates that there is a need for future research that considers this in particular, as well as research that considers the whole food production chain and all dimensions at once, and investigates effects across multiple scales.
... In Europe, consumers often associate locally produced and organic food products with higher quality standards (freshness, nutritional value), healthy eating, good taste, cultural values, and more environmentally friendly production methods [1,2]. With the increase of consumers' demand for local produce and organic food in Europe [3], the land covered by organic farm increased from 7.27 million hectares in 2006 to 11.63 million hectares in 2014 [4]. ...
... Consumers' food buying decisions could be influenced by food quality [20]. In order to test this statistically (using the current survey result), the weighted average 'Rank values' (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8), and N = 100) have been computed for both food quality and buying decision characteristics (see Figure 5). ...
Consumers' demand for locally produced and organic foods has increased in Sweden. This paper presents the results obtained from the analysis of data acquired from 100 consumers in Sweden who participated in an online survey during March to June 2016. The objective was to identify consumers' demand in relation to organic food and sustainable food production, and to understand how the consumers evaluate food quality and make buying decisions. Qualitative descriptions, descriptive statistics and Pearson's Chi-square test (with alpha value ofp< 0.05 as level of significance), and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used for analysis. About 72% of participants have the perception that organic food production method is more sustainable than conventional methods. Female consumers have more positive attitudes than men towards organic food. However, age difference, household size and income level do not significantly influence the consumers' perception of sustainable food production concepts. Regionality, sustainable methods of production and organic production are the most important parameters to characterize the food as high quality and make buying decisions. On the other hand, product uniformity, appearance, and price were found to be relatively less important parameters. Food buying decisions and food quality were found to be highly related with Pearson's correlation coefficient ofr= 0.99.
... Another characteristic of green products is the perception that consumers often associate locally produced and organic foods with better quality standards (freshness, nutritional content), healthy eating, pleasant taste, cultural values, and ecologically responsible production techniques [74,75]. Over the past few decades, consumers have gradually increased their consumption of organic food, creating a market for organic food and beverages worth 92 billion euros in 2017 [76]. ...
Green products are crucial for a sustainable future. Without a strong understanding of
consumer intent toward green products and research gaps, translating the availability of green products into actual consumer and market acceptance is hampered. This article reviews the available literature on green products and their relationship to consumers through bibliometric analysis. We used VosViewer to globalize the topic mapping and Scimat for longitudinal analysis. The results show that the available literature can be divided into four clusters, and five periods representing four distinct eras can be defined. Published studies were found in only 15 of the 36 calendar years constituting the first era. The second era started a wave of increasing green product research. In the third era, the number of journals with publications related to green products peaked. After the diversification of the third era, the fourth era saw the consolidation of the main vectors of publication. Despite a slow start in 1974, the research on eco-friendly products has expanded significantly over the past decade. Nonetheless, one persistent weakness of the literature is that most studies use customer intent, not the purchase itself, as the dependent variable. Consequently, there is still enormous potential for further research.
... For nitrogen fixation in pastures, data were obtained from Cederberg and Nilsson [58]. Data on phosphorus application rates were primarily obtained as site-specific data from national authorities and advisory services [59][60][61][62][63], and otherwise taken from the World Food LCA database [33], peer-reviewed LCA studies [46,[64][65][66] or LCA reports [39,41,47,67]. ...
Reducing environmental impacts from the food system will require a shift towards environmentally sustainable eating patterns. To achieve changes in diets that reduce environmental burdens, a climate tax on food has been suggested. This thesis examined different aspects of data on environmental pressures and their use for establishing and evaluating a tax on food, as well as assessing the sustainability of diets. This included establishing climate impact values for foods, for use in a climate tax. Further, this thesis identified aspects needed to determine the environmental sustainability of diets in the Swedish context. The environmental pressures of the current average Swedish diet were calculated and benchmarked against suggested global environmental boundaries. Potential goal conflicts resulting from taxation were identified.
A method based on Life Cycle Assessment was developed for establishing consistent and transparent datasets on the climate impact of foods, for use in a climate tax on food. Evaluation of methodological choices for assessing climate impact revealed a common trade-off between using climate impact data that result in a theoretically cost-efficient tax and simplicity in calculations.
Comparison of the global EAT-Lancet framework for environmentally sustainable food systems and the national Swedish Environmental Objectives revealed a need for additional aspects to capture regional environmental concerns in Sweden. For this, there is a need for better inventory data, site-dependent impact modelling and improved traceability for imported foods. The environmental pressures of Swedish food consumption were found to exceed global boundaries for greenhouse gas emissions, cropland use and nutrient application by two- to four-fold. For extinction rate of terrestrial species, the boundary was transgressed by six-fold. The only environmental category for which the global boundary was not exceeded was freshwater use, for which the diet performed well below the limit.
Climate taxation on all foods on the Swedish market was found to have the potential to reduce food-related environmental pressures by 7-12%, mainly owing to an overall decrease in food consumption. With a decline in beef consumption, pasture use was found to decrease by up to 12%. To avoid potential goal conflicts with maintaining Swedish semi-natural pastures when introducing a climate tax, farmers could be given higher payments for management of these areas.
... The consideration of biodiversity is an added value compared to the PEF method provided that, as with other measures, reliable data can be extracted and utilised. In contrast, however, the consideration of organic, origin or use of recyclable plastics are not, per se, added values as they are known to be poor indicators of overall environmental impacts (Coley et al., 2009;Cristea et al., 2013;Frankowska et al., 2019;Phalan et al., 2011;Röös & Karlsson, 2013;Tuomisto et al., 2012). In fact, the PEF method was developed as a more scientifically robust alternative to these shortcuts in calculating environmental impacts. ...
... In line with that, a Swedish study concluded that the effect on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to eating seasonal vegetables is limited when considering the whole food sector. This finding can be encouraged by the minor percentage of emissions caused by vegetable production [91]. ...
The issue of local food supply has attracted considerable political and public attention, due to the changing preferences of consumers, who have more awareness about ecological sustainability, in particular, but also due to recent developments concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to identify measures facilitating local food value chains, which are resilient to different nationwide and global future developments, the aim of our analysis was to set the identified measures derived from the local roadmap of the city of Graz in the context of European scenarios for the agri-food sector in 2035. The results show that certain measures are applicable under all of the described scenarios, such as the food policy council, whereas some measures—for example, open food labs—are less suitable or need to be adjusted to fit the purpose within changing framework conditions. Setting specific measures for a city region in the broader context of European agri-food scenarios provides a systemic perspective, thus making the multiple links and influences more visible.
... The same applies to footprint labels displaying the product's impact in a specific environmental domain (e.g., carbon, water) (Peschel et al., 2016). Another problem is the lack of consensus regarding definitions; for example, while some include only local products in their definition of seasonality, others expand seasonality to other European countries (Röös and Karlsson, 2013). ...
Consumers' food choices play a crucial role in the shift toward increased sustainability. However, consumers' knowledge about daily food items is not sufficient to evoke environmentally friendly food choices. To facilitate a shift towards more sustainable food consumption, providing understandable information about the environmental impact of products in an easily accessible and effective way seems to be promising. With this outcome in view, we created a new label and tested its effectiveness in improving people's accuracy in evaluating the environmental friendliness of food products. The proposed label is based on life cycle assessment (LCA) and designed to compare food items across food categories through a color-coded scheme. In an online choice task, participants were asked to choose the more environmentally friendly product of two options. Depending on the condition, the products were either labeled or not. As expected, the number of correct choices was significantly higher when the products were labeled (vs. not). Moreover, participants had a positive attitude toward the cross-category label; they evaluated it as comprehensible, credible and useful. The majority of participants indicated that they would be willing to include the label in their shopping decisions, if it were introduced to the market. Altogether, the present research provides evidence that a color-coded sustainability label is suitable for informing consumers about the environmental impact of food products and helps them identify environmentally friendly products.
... China's cherry consumption rapidly increased in the last decade, from 92,0 0 0 tons in 2005 to 455,0 0 0 tons in 2017 ( USDA, 2005( USDA, -2017. The rising demand for fresh cherries in China is mainly satisfied by imports from major cherry-producing countries, such as Chile and the United States, and by extending the domestic cherry production period through heated greenhouses, an energyintensive cherry cultivation method ( Röös and Karlsson, 2013 ). ...
Greenhouse farming increasingly has been adopted in China to provide off-season products because fruit and vegetable crops cannot be grown year-round. Compared with conventional open-field cultivation, however, greenhouse cultivation usually requires higher energy and material inputs for facility construction and interior heating, increasing the environmental burdens associated with product provision. Thus, the cradle-to-gate "time-environmental" trade-off of off-season products should be completely quantified to guide green consumption. In this study we employed the process-based life-cycle assessment modeling approach to estimate the environmental costs of greenhouse cherry cultivation and compared these costs with the impacts of open-field cultivation. We examined 10 impact categories, including the abiotic depletion potential of fossil fuels, global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, ozone layer depletion, photochemical oxidation potential, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity potential, marine aquatic potential, terrestrial ecotoxicity potential, and human toxicity potential. The results show that the environmental impacts of greenhouse cherry cultivation are considerably higher (112.7% to 1672.5%) than those of open-field production, indicating significant environmental burdens associated with producing fresh cherries one to two month early. For greenhouse cherry production, interior heating was the hotspot in all impact categories, and fertilizer dominated the impacts of open-field cultivation. For greenhouse cherries, impact mitigation opportunities mainly were found in the adoption of cleaner heating fuel and animal manure use.
... Cultivated carrots are mainly grown in open fields and are mostly sown in Swedish areas from March to mid-June. Carrots for direct consumption and cold storage are harvested between early July and late October [3]. There are also carrots stored under straw that are harvested during the winter from December to May. ...
Carrots with different Rhizoctonia-like symptoms were found in the main Swedish carrot production areas from 2001–2020. The most commonly observed symptoms were a greyish-white felt-like mycelium and black scurf, the latter often associated with Rhizoctonia solani anastomosis group (AG) 3-PT on potato. An overall increase in disease incidence in all studied fields over time was observed for both symptoms. The majority of Rhizoctonia isolates sampled from carrot in the period 2015–2020 were identified as AG 3 (45%) and AG 5 (24%), followed by AG 1-IB (13%), AG 11 (5%), AG-E (5%), AG BI (3%), AG-K (3%) and AG 4-HGII (2%). To our knowledge, this is the first report describing AG 5 in Sweden as well as AG 3, AG 11 and AG-E inducing Rhizoctonia-like symptoms on carrot. Secondly, we report for the first time that R. solani AG 3, and the less observed AGs: AG 1-IB and AG 5 can induce black scurf symptoms on the taproot of carrots. Due to a widely used carrot-potato crop rotation in Swedish areas, a possible cross-over from potato to carrot is suggested. This information is of high importance to reduce Rhizoctonia inoculum in soils, since avoiding carrot-potato crop rotations needs to be considered.
... The remaining seven categories (i.e., eggs, dairy products, cereals, sweets, pulses, vegetable oils, and roots) are assumed to be much more seasonal, or more easily to be preserved, than vegetables and fruits to be eaten during the Spanish winter. This reduction target has also been widely cited in the literature, and the advice on climate-smart food consumption given by many authorities and NGOs worldwide includes the recommendation to eat seasonal foods [39]. For measuring this target, the creation of an extra winter plan was required for the BAU and D25% scenarios, assuming summer as March to August (i.e., including the spring) and winter as September to February (i.e., including the autumn). ...
There is a growing debate surrounding the contradiction between an unremitting increase in the use of resources and the search for environmental sustainability. Therefore, the concept of sustainable degrowth is emerging aiming to introduce in our societies new social values and new policies, capable of satisfying human requirements whilst reducing environmental impacts and consumption of resources. In this framework, circular economy strategies for food production and food loss and waste management systems, following the Sustainable Development Goals agenda, are being developed based on a search for circularity, but without setting limits to the continual increase in environmental impacts and resource use. This work presents a methodology for determining the percentage of degrowth needed in any food supply chain, by analyzing four scenarios in a life cycle assessment approach over time between 2020 and 2040. Results for the Spanish case study suggested a degrowth need of 26.8% in 2015 and 58.9% in 2040 in order to achieve compliance with the Paris Agreement targets, highlighting the reduction of meat and fish and seafood consumption as the most useful path.
... In particular, the multi-tunnel greenhouse assessed by Sanyé-Mengual et al. (2015c) required 2.4 times the amount of concrete as this iRTG (0.212 kg/m 2 ⋅y). Compared with Venlo-type greenhouses (Anton et al., 2012;Bosona and Gebresenbet, 2018;Röös and Karlsson, 2013;Torrellas et al., 2012), the amount of concrete increases by 4.6 to 5.9 fold. Similar trends showed SCG.1 and 2, with a 4.7-and 5.2-fold increase compared to S0, even though concrete contributes only between 1.0% and 4.8% of conventional greenhouse scenarios' environmental impacts. ...
A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Life cycle assessment Material flow analysis Resource use efficiency Structural modeling Urban agriculture Urban metabolism A B S T R A C T Urban and building systems are awash with materials. The incorporation of green infrastructure such as integrated rooftop greenhouses (iRTGs) has the potential to contribute to buildings' and cities' circularity. However, its greater sophistication than conventional agriculture (CA) could lead to a shift in environmental impacts. One of the key elements for greenhouse building-integrated agriculture (BIA) and CA to achieve high levels of environmental performance is their structural design, which largely impacts the economic and environmental life-cycle costs (by up to 63%). In this context, the study assessed iRTGs life-cycle material and energy flows and their environmental burdens at structural level (m-2 y-1) within life cycle assessment (LCA), based on a case study in Barcelona. A structural assessment following European standards allowed the identification of key design factors to minimize the environmental impacts of RTGs' structure within improvement scenarios. The assessment revealed that a steel structure in a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario contributed from 31.5 to 67.3% of the impact categories analyzed, followed by the polycarbonate covering material (from 21.8 to 45.9%). The key design factors responsible for these environmental impacts were ground height, ventilation design, building integration and urban location. The improvement scenarios compensated for additional steel inputs by up to 35.9% and decreased environmental impacts that might occur in the BIA context by 24.1% compared with the BAU scenario. The assessment also revealed that urban environments do not imply shifting environmental impacts per se, as greenhouse BIA structures can benefit from their advantageous characteristics or be compensated by optimized greenhouse structures.
... The characteristics of the study and variations in the results, as mentioned in the above references are also tabulated in a review study (Parajuli et al., 2018). The selection of environmental impact categories are also limited, mostly considered only greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Fuentes et al., 2006;González et al., 2011;Röös and Karlsson, 2013), and those studies that included additional impact categories, mainly focused on eutrophication potential, acidification potential and energy use (Abdelradi, 2018). Most importantly, only a few types of processed food categories have been evaluated (Andersson and Ohlsson, 1999;Brodt et al., 2013;Del Borghi et al., 2014;Mila´i Canals and Polo, 2003;Mouron et al., 2016;Stoessel et al., 2012). ...
This study discusses the environmental life cycle impacts of potato and tomato supply chains in a “cradle-to-grave” perspective. The principal focus is to evaluate the processed products, while fresh products are also briefly discussed. Processed products included are potato-chips, frozen fries and dehydrated flakes, and tomato-pasta sauce. The functional unit (FU) is 1 kg product(s), eaten at the consumer stage. Life cycle assessment (LCA) modeling has utilized multiple mechanistic crop models to estimate the crop yields, crop nutrient uptakes and irrigation water requirements. The farming systems represent the primary crop reporting districts where the selected crops are produced on a commercial scale in the United States. The post-harvest system was constructed utilizing the data collected from a processing plant and from other available studies. LCA modeling also constituted handling of co-products (e.g. starch in potatoes) and biowaste. A wide range of environmental impact categories were selected for the evaluation, which showed environmental differences between fresh and processed products. For instance, global warming potential for potato-fresh, chips, fries and dehydrated was 0.97, 0.85, 1.21 and 0.65 kg CO2-eq/FU respectively. For fresh tomato and tomato sauce, it was 0.74 and 1.5 kg CO2-eq/FU respectively. Likewise, fossil resource scarcity for fresh potatoes was higher than chips and dehydrated flakes, but lower than fries. Water consumption was slightly higher in fresh potatoes compared to the processed products. Similar impact patterns were found in fresh and processed tomato products. For most of the impact categories, processing and the agriculture systems were the major contributors. The contribution from the consumer stage varied with the ways the product is prepared, e.g. whether fries are oven heated or deep-fried in oil. Environmental mitigation measures include, the use of drip irrigation (for potatoes), and reducing: food miles, food waste and the use of secondary packaging materials.
... Cabbage, celery and Brussels sprouts, on the other hand, were found to be, in general, the most environmentally sustainable [89]. Röös and Karlsson conclude that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in relative terms of the individual vegetables might be up to e.g., 60% when prioritizing seasonal produce; however, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms from eating seasonal vegetables is limited, as emissions from vegetable production make up a minor proportion of the total emissions from food consumption [90]. ...
Plant-based diets have been linked to both health benefits and a lower climate impact. However, plant-based diets may represent both healthy and unhealthy dietary practices. The present study aimed to develop a nationally adapted healthy plant-based diet based on the global EAT-Lancet reference diet. Development took place in a series of steps. First, the original EAT-Lancet reference diet was evaluated based on food availability, i.e., using Danish food data (Model 1). Then, the model was further modified to reflect national food based dietary guidelines (FBDG) and characteristics of current consumption pattern, e.g., by including processed food, discretionary foods and beverages in the diet (Model 2). The contents of macronutrients, vitamins and minerals, except for vitamin D and iodine, were found to be sufficient for Model 2, according to the recommended nutrient density to be used for planning diets for groups of individuals aged 6–65 years. In addition, the study gave an insight into the nutrients and foods to be aware of in planning a predominantly plant-based diet, thereby providing directions for future revisions of sustainable FBDGs. These include a stronger emphasis on the intake of legumes, nuts and seeds, fruit and vegetables including dark green vegetables, whole-grain products and vegetable oils as well as lowering meat intake.
... For nitrogen fixation in pastures, data were obtained from Cederberg and Nilsson [58]. Data on phosphorus application rates were primarily obtained as site-specific data from national authorities and advisory services [59][60][61][62][63], and otherwise taken from the World Food LCA database [33], peer-reviewed LCA studies [46,[64][65][66] or LCA reports [39,41,47,67]. ...
To reduce environmental burdens from the food system, a shift towards environmentally sustainable diets is needed. In this study, the environmental impacts of the Swedish diet were benchmarked relative to global environmental boundaries suggested by the EAT-Lancet Commission. To identify local environmental concerns not captured by the global boundaries, relationships between the global EAT-Lancet variables and the national Swedish Environmental Objectives (SEOs) were analysed and additional indicators for missing aspects were identified. The results showed that the environmental impacts caused by the average Swedish diet exceeded the global boundaries for greenhouse gas emissions, cropland use and application of nutrients by two- to more than four-fold when the boundaries were scaled to per capita level. With regard to biodiversity, the impacts caused by the Swedish diet transgressed the boundary by six-fold. For freshwater use, the diet performed well within the boundary. Comparison of global and local indicators revealed that the EAT-Lancet variables covered many aspects included in the SEOs, but that these global indicators are not always of sufficiently fine resolution to capture local aspects of environmental sustainability, such as eutrophication impacts. To consider aspects and impact categories included in the SEO but not currently covered by the EAT-Lancet variables, such as chemical pollution and acidification, additional indicators and boundaries are needed. This requires better inventory data on e.g., pesticide use and improved traceability for imported foods.
... While goals of selfsufficiency and local food were shared on the surface, tensions in participant views showed that they include many different views and normative judgements. Local food could entail eating a more seasonally adapted diet, which in itself needs to be defined (Röös and Karlsson, 2013), or food from Europe, Nordic countries, Sweden, the region or the municipality. The focus on local food for a local market also contrasts with the national food strategy, which highlights opportunities for exporting Swedish food. ...
Globally, food systems face multifaceted sustainability challenges and the need for food system transformation is increasingly acknowledged. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the pathways for transformation and how they will play out in diverse regional social-ecological contexts. We explored transformation towards more sustainable and resilient food systems in a specific regional context-the Stockholm city-region in Sweden. The approach we used is based on a new methodology for bottom-up, participatory narrative scenarios that has been developed in the international sustainability science project "Bright Spots: Seeds of the Good Anthropocene". Through a workshop and a survey with a diverse set of regional actors, we developed a vision of a positive food future and identified conflicts and opportunities for moving towards it. The vision highlights four components from across different sectors and represents a significant change from the current situation. The direction of change aligns with global goals of sustainable and healthy diets and promotes increased diversity in crops and landscapes that could strengthen the resilience of regional food systems. However, potential trade-offs between local diversity and global resource efficiency need to be better understood. While the approach revealed barriers in existing economic and socio-cultural mechanisms of global food systems, it also allowed us to identify several opportunities for local initiatives to expand the regional niche, for example by using the leverage of actors situated between producers and consumers. The Seeds of Good Anthropocene scenario methodology helped to understand more of the cross-scale dynamics in a transformation process in a specific social-ecological context and can be useful to navigate food system change in other places as well.
... The carbon footprint of fresh organic tomatoes and their reference, 18 and 34 kgCO 2 e ton −1 respectively, are lower than the literature range of 6,000 kgCO 2 e ton −1 ). This wide range found in the literature is the result of different production methods, with very high values for growing tomatoes in heated greenhouses, where most of the carbon footprint comes from greenhouse construction and heating (Almeida et al. 2014;Röös and Karlsson 2013). Tomatoes grown in open fields in Italy are thus below the range. ...
Italy is the second most important processed tomato producer in the world, at 13.6% of the world production of processed tomatoes. Almost half of the Italian production originates in the tomato cluster of northern Italy, and the lion’s share of the cultivated area is concentrated in Emilia Romagna. Organic tomato growing and production can be considered niche activities – accounting for only 6.6% of the utilized agricultural area – but they are subject to increasing consumer demand. The northern Italy tomato cluster is characterized by a unique governance mechanism which brings together producer associations, associations of producer associations and processor associations in an inter-branch organization. Partly because of the existence of this unique governance mechanism, organic processed tomatoes in the northern Italy cluster appear to be more sustainable than their reference product in almost all the domains measured by the systematic indicators employed in the assessment. Organic tomatoes do not perform better than their reference product in terms of export share, blue water footprint and gender equality.
... mmedia). For example, GHG emissions of produce can be reduced by eating fruits and vegetables such as raspberries, tomatoes and carrots, only when they are season (Röös andKarlsson 2013, Foster et al 2014). GHG emissions associated with protein-rich products can be reduced by replacing meat with plant-based products (Clune et al 2017). ...
Carbon footprints – the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with consumer food choices –substantially contribute to climate change. Life cycle analyses from climate and environmental sciences have identified effective rules for reducing these food-related carbon footprints, including eating seasonal produce and replacing dairy and red meat with plant-based products. In a national UK survey, we studied how many and which rules our participants generated for reducing GHG emissions of produce, dairy, and protein-rich products. We also asked participants to estimate GHG emission reductions associated with pre-selected rules, expressed in either grams or percentages. We found that participants generated few and relatively less effective rules, including ambiguous ones like 'Buy local'. Furthermore, participants' numerical estimates of pre-selected rules were less accurate when they assessed GHG emission reductions in grams rather than in percentages. Findings suggest a need for communicating fewer rules in percentages, for informing consumers about reducing food-related GHG emissions.
... Studies of other vegetables include potatoes, lettuce and carrots; however, they are mainly limited to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and the related global warming potential (GWP) (Fuentes et al., 2006;González et al., 2011;Hospido et al., 2009;Röös and Karlsson, 2013;Williams et al., 2008). Those that have considered additional impacts, such as energy use, eutrophication and acidification, have been limited to few life cycle stages or to a certain country. ...
A healthy diet depends on the daily intake of vegetables. Yet, their environmental impacts along the full supply chains are scarcely known. Therefore, this paper provides for the first time a comprehensive evaluation of the life cycle environmental impacts of vegetables consumed in UK. The impacts are assessed for 56 fresh and processed products produced domestically and imported from abroad, considering both the product and sectoral levels. At the product level, taking into account the market mix of fresh and processed vegetables for each vegetable type sold in the UK, asparagus has the highest per-kg impacts across most of the 19 impact categories considered, while cabbage, celery and Brussels sprouts are generally environmentally most sustainable. At the sectoral level, the annual consumption of 10.8 t of vegetables generates 20.3 Mt CO 2 eq., consumes 260.7 PJ of primary energy and depletes 253 Mt eq. of water. The majority of the impacts are caused by potatoes since they account for 56% of the total amount of vegetables consumed, with crisps and frozen chips contributing most to the total impacts. Importing vegetables grown in unheated greenhouses in Europe has a lower impact than UK vegetables cultivated in heated greenhouses, despite the transportation. The impacts of air-freighted fresh vegetables are around five times higher than of those produced domestically. Even processed products have lower impacts than fresh air-freighted produce. Packaging also contributes significantly to the impacts, in particular glass jars and metal cans used for processed vegetables. Other significant hotspots are open display cabinets at the retailer and cooking of vegetables at home. The results of this study will be useful for food manufacturers, retailers and consumers, helping to identify improvement opportunities along vegetables supply chains.
... More specifically, off-season consumption is likely to be associated with production in heated greenhouses, long-distance transport or cold storage (see e.g. Macdiarmid, 2014;Röös and Karlsson, 2013). Thus, we explore the evolution of seasonal patterns in consumption by regressing purchased quantities for individual F&V categories on quarterly binary variables and fixed year effects over different sub-samples. ...
This paper estimates the impact of policy measures aimed at increasing fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption in the UK over more than a decade, evaluating changes in purchased quantities and estimating the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs). We use a counterfactual scenario analysis to isolate the effects of the policy from the influences of evolving prices, incomes and socio-demographic factors. Our estimates suggest that the positive effects of the promotion campaigns on F&V purchases (about half a portion per adult equivalent per day) still persist 10 years after the start of the policy implementation, and we find no evidence of a wearout effect. We also provide suggestive evidence that the dietary adjustment which accompanies the increase in F&V intakes translates into a relevant reduction in GHGEs, by an average amount of 3.3kg of CO2e per adult equivalent per month.
... Beyond the discussion of domestic versus imported produce, it may also be interesting to look at how local systems perform, such as buying apples directly at the farm rather than in a supermarket. In that case, both the technologies used during production and the distribution modes will affect the impact rather than the distances travelled (Van Hauwermeiren et al. 2007;Mundler and Rumpus 2012;Röös and Karlsson 2013). ...
Purpose
Using apple consumption in Belgium as a case study, this study examines the environmental impacts associated with Belgian (BE) and New Zealand (NZ) apples, how impacts evolve throughout the year and how packaging affects this impact. Additionally, impacts associated with food losses and food waste along the chain are assessed. The study aims to delineate the most important factors in determining environmental impacts associated with apple.
Methods
The environmental impacts are calculated using the ILCD (International Reference Life Cycle Data System) approach. The functional unit is 1 kg of apples purchased by a consumer in the supermarket. Primary data was collected through players along the chain. Various scenarios are analysed for both the BE and NZ apples, based on the moment of purchase and packaging method. Food loss and waste impacts are assessed by splitting the impacts along the chain into three categories: apples lost along the supply chain, apples purchased and eaten by the consumer and apples purchased and wasted by the consumer.
Results and discussion
For all impact categories assessed, NZ apples come at a higher environmental cost than BE ones due to overseas transport. For both BE and NZ apples, minimum impacts are found for bulk apples at the beginning of the season, whereas maximum values are found for pre-packed apples at the end of the season. For BE apples, the choice of packaging method highly affects the impact, while it is negligible relative to shipping impacts for NZ apples. Altering secondary packaging materials of BE apples allows for impact reductions up to 50%. In the case of climate change, food waste and losses contribute up to 25% or 15% for BE or NZ apples, respectively, as all lost food travels in vain through the food chain and needs to be disposed of.
Conclusions
The study shows the importance of origin and packaging, whereas the moment of purchase hardly affects the environmental impact of apples. From a supply chain perspective, there is room for improvement as altering the use of secondary packaging greatly reduces impacts along the chain. The study further highlights how impacts are magnified by food waste and losses.
... For example, a study in Switzerland found large differences in CO 2 e per kg for different fruits and vegetables, and for individual fruits and vegetables, depending on origin and mode of transport, and on whether they were produced in heated greenhouses (Stoessel et al., 2012). Another study found the kg CO 2 e per kg for Swedish tomatoes was approximately 3-4 times that of Swedish carrots, due to the emissions from building and heating greenhouses (Röös and Karlsson, 2013). ...
Diet change toward more plant-based diets is very likely critical for avoiding catastrophic environmental damage, including climate change. This is primarily because animal foods contribute such a large proportion of food system climate impacts, which in turn contribute a large portion of the total human impact. However, our understanding of the details of the impact of different diets is also limited due to lack of data, uncertainty, and differences in methodology. We address three key questions that need to be answered for an informed discussion of the climate impact of plant-based diets: How can diets be measured to assess their climate impact? How can climate impact be measured and attributed to diet? What do we know about the relative climate impact of different plant-based diets?.
Vitamin A comes from carrots, D from dairy, E from nuts and K from spinach? True, but there is way more to it. Liver is rich in numerous vitamins, but raising a cow has a different environmental load to growing produce, as much as they differ in taste and price. Vitamin D is technically a hormone, and it’s the result of sun exposure: humans, animals, plants, they all can synthesize it. Nuts offer plenty of vitamin E and they are tasty, but how much water does it take to grow them? Perhaps oilseeds can be considered as sustainable alternatives, not a replacement, just another option. Dietary sourcing of vitamin K is typically sustainable, but it can get more creative to increase consumer appeal. Green leafy vegetables can be used to make tasty dips or even flours that improve low gluten baked goods. Options are available, specific knowledge is discussed in this chapter.KeywordsDairyMeatPlant basedVitamin AVitamin DVitamin EVitamin K
Fibre is extremely important in human diet. Not for energy, but in support of our health. It helps preventing cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer by reducing the absorption rate of glucose and cholesterol. In addition, fibre comes with a load of antioxidants, minerals and vitamins. Fibre can be soluble or insoluble in water, resulting in different effects on health and food quality. Sources are plant-based: mushrooms, fruits, seeds, vegetables and wholegrains. Their environmental impact is very low, especially for produce, which mostly offers soluble fibre from fruits and vegetables. Grains and seeds (mostly sources of insoluble fibre) can be more demanding, thus upcycled sources of fibre (defatted seeds, okara) are an excellent innovation. Inulin, mucilage-rich seeds and mushrooms are now extremely popular due to health properties, low footprint and enhanced food quality (juicy texture).KeywordsFootprintInsoluble fibreMushroomsPrebioticsSoluble fibreUpcycling
Urbanization and globalization are changing the conventional constraints of seasonality and geography on food consumption, such as that of fresh cherries. The rising demand for year-round cherry consumption in China is currently satisfied by open-field, greenhouse-produced, and imported products. This study conducted a spatial-temporal life cycle evaluation of the environmental performance of cherry consumption behaviors during different seasons of the year. Moreover, based on the definitions of global and local seasonality, the additional environmental costs of out-of-season cherry consumption were estimated. Results show that seasonality was an important factor affecting the environmental burdens of cherry consumption. Eating cherries imported from Chile by air in October resulted in the highest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of 6.38 kg CO2-eq/kg, while eating domestic open-field cherries during May to July (the natural harvest season) was a relatively environmentally beneficial option. The total cherry consumption in China in 2019 generated GHG emissions of 126.99 × 10⁴ t CO2-eq. Under the definitions of global and local seasonality, the out-of-season consumption led to additional environmental costs of 57.59 × 10⁴ and 85.67 × 10⁴ t CO2-eq, accounting for 45.35% and 67.46% of total emissions, respectively. Furthermore, the time-environment trade-off effect of cherry consumption illustrates the higher environmental costs are exchanged for satisfying the appetite for out-of-season fresh foods. Our findings emphasize the meaningful implications for developing a sustainable consumption pattern for all stakeholders involved in the entire food chain.
Understanding how consumers categorize a consumer good as eco-friendly is key to facilitating consumers' purchasing of products with lower environmental footprints. Scholarship has increasingly addressed this question. However, most research has examined a single cue that prevents the building of a holistic explanation. An integrative review of studies may provide not only a synthesis of the state of the art but also an overarching integrative theoretical framework that explains what cues consumers use to categorize products as green and the mechanisms guiding the interpretation of these cues. This review of 29 studies examining consumers' assessment of eco-friendliness in consumer goods unearths five cues used as surrogate indicators of eco-friendliness. Nevertheless, these cues are not entirely related to the actual environmental footprint of a product based on the life cycle assessment. Drawing from schema categorization theory, an integrative theoretical framework is presented whereby categorization processes are said to be guided by consumers' lay theories. A research agenda is outlined to stimulate new lines of inquiry around lay theories and product attributes.
The purpose of this study was to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the environmental impact of highly concentrated tomato paste produced by cold break and hot break methods. We considered the environmental impact and environmental hot spots related to tomato cultivation, tomato paste processing, packaging, and transportation, and then identified potential improvements for each stage. The research site was in Xinjiang, China, which is the main production area of high-concentration tomato paste for export in China. Taking 240 kg tomato paste packed in 220-L steel drums as the functional unit, the main data were obtained from studies on production enterprises and agricultural statistics. Ten environmental impacts were calculated using eFootprint: primary energy demand (PED), resource depletion-water (WU), climate change (GWP), ozone depletion (ODP), acidification (AP), particulate matter (RI), photochemical ozone formation (POFP), eutrophication (EP), ecotoxicity-freshwater (ET), and human toxicity-cancer effects (HT-cancer); their respective values for cold break paste were 5947 MJ, 82400 kg, 490 kg CO2 eq, 4.07E-06 kg CFC-11 eq, 5.150 kg SO2 eq, 1.600 kg PM2.5 eq, 0.270 kg NMVOC eq, 1.000 kg PO4³⁻ eq, 4.230 CTUe, and 3.70E-07 CTUh. The results showed that the environmental impact of cold break paste was lower than that of hot break paste because of lower steam consumption. The cultivation phase was the main contributor to WU, AP, EP, ET, and HT-cancer. In the processing phase, mashed tomatoes are concentrated using a large amount of steam to obtain a concentrated paste product. The energy consumption in the processing phase contributed >50% of PED, GWP, and RI. Although the packaging and transportation phases had smaller environmental impacts, the use of steel drums for packaging cannot be ignored. We conducted sensitivity analyses to evaluate the overall benefits that could be achieved by different mitigation schemes. In the whole supply chain, improving irrigation and fertilization methods and replacing the primary energy for steam production are the best strategies to improve environmental sustainability.
Our food system is very resource and emissions intensive and contributes to a broad range of environmental impacts. We have developed cradle-to-market greenhouse gas emissions estimates of supplying fresh tomatoes to 10 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States and applied a linear optimization algorithm to determine the optimal tomato distribution scheme that will minimize tomato-related greenhouse gas emissions across all 10 areas. Monte Carlo simulation was performed to assess the uncertainties in the data. Results indicate that the current tomato distribution scheme is suboptimal. Reallocation of the fresh tomato supply across the 10 areas could decrease transportation-related emissions by 34% and overall tomato-related greenhouse gas emissions by 13%—from 277,000 metric tons of CO2e to 242,000 metric tons of CO2e. Production practices and geographic conditions (such as soil and climate) are more significant for GHG emissions than the supply allocation or the seasonality of supply.
In light of a European harmonized Front-of-Package (FOP) labelling system, an integrated “Eco-score” should overcome the multitude of sustainability labels on food. However, several established sustainability-related food attributes, like organic standards or the product’s origin, are typically also considered pro-environmental attributes by consumers. This coexistence might require trade-offs with the new Eco-score during food choices. Further, the need to activate pro-environmental goals amongst consumers while making food choices has increasingly been expressed, as an improvement or addition to merely awareness-increasing approaches. This study evaluated Belgian consumers’ (N = 300) preferences for available vegetable supplies through a discrete choice experiment (DCE) with attributes on seasonality, localness, organic label, Eco-score and a monthly price. Furthermore, using a 2 × 2 between-subject split, various ways of priming pro-environmental goals through sustainable self-views have been evaluated. Overall, Eco-scores were found equally important as price and localness, while organic was found least important. In addition, in situations of conflicting Eco-scores and origins (i.e. local with poor Eco-scores and vice versa), more importance was attached to the most beneficial attribute. Furthermore, strong aversions towards longer term commitments to seasonal vegetable consumption were observed. Lastly, making people think of themselves as sustainable yet too confidently, might backfire. With more uncertainty, sustainable self-views might induce more positive preferences for seasonal vegetables and better Eco-Scores. The challenges and opportunities revealed by these insights should guide future policymaking for a more effective labelling system.
In 2007, China surpassed the USA to become the largest carbon emitter in the world. China has promised a 60%–65% reduction in carbon emissions per unit GDP by 2030, compared to the baseline of 2005. Therefore, it is important to obtain accurate dynamic information on the spatial and temporal patterns of carbon emissions and carbon footprints to support formulating effective national carbon emission reduction policies. This study attempts to build a carbon emission panel data model that simulates carbon emissions in China from 2000–2013 using nighttime lighting data and carbon emission statistics data. By applying the Exploratory Spatial-Temporal Data Analysis (ESTDA) framework, this study conducted an analysis on the spatial patterns and dynamic spatial-temporal interactions of carbon footprints from 2001–2013. The improved Tapio decoupling model was adopted to investigate the levels of coupling or decoupling between the carbon emission load and economic growth in 336 prefecture-level units. The results show that, firstly, high accuracy was achieved by the model in simulating carbon emissions. Secondly, the total carbon footprints and carbon deficits across China increased with average annual growth rates of 4.82% and 5.72%, respectively. The overall carbon footprints and carbon deficits were larger in the North than that in the South. There were extremely significant spatial autocorrelation features in the carbon footprints of prefecture-level units. Thirdly, the relative lengths of the Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) time paths were longer in the North than that in the South, and they increased from the coastal to the central and western regions. Lastly, the overall decoupling index was mainly a weak decoupling type, but the number of cities with this weak decoupling continued to decrease. The unsustainable development trend of China’s economic growth and carbon emission load will continue for some time.
The United States food system requires energy, water, and land in significant proportions, releases large quantities of greenhouse gases, and contributes to other environmental concerns. Meeting future demand for fresh food will be especially challenging, requiring the adoption of holistic, systems-level thinking to maximize production and supply while limiting consequences to the climate and natural resources. We have developed a cradle-to-market life-cycle environmental model to assess the greenhouse gas footprint of fresh tomatoes supplied to ten of the largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States. A linear optimization algorithm is applied to determine the optimal tomato distribution scheme that will minimize tomato-related greenhouse gas emissions across all ten areas. Monte Carlo simulation was performed to assess the uncertainties in the data. Results indicate that the current tomato distribution scheme is suboptimal; re-allocating the fresh tomato supply across these ten areas has the potential to decrease transportation-related emissions by 34% and overall tomato-related greenhouse gas emissions by 13%—from 277,000 MTCO 2 e to 242,000 MTCO 2 e. The substantial variability of the optimized scenario raises questions about its practical implementation. Ultimately, however, production practices and geographic conditions (such as soil and climate) are more significant with respect to environmental impact than the supply allocation or the seasonality of supply. Our analysis found a roughly six-fold difference between Philadelphia tomatoes sourced from open-field Virginian production (0.38 kgCO 2 e/kg) compared with controlled-environment Mexican production (2.3 kgCO 2 e/kg).
Interest in the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to determine the environmental performance of agricultural products has increased in recent years. However, the application of LCA is sometimes limited by the lack of accurate, precise, and complete inventory data. In this study, we reviewed publications related to the LCA of fresh tomato production in greenhouses to provide an overview of the inventory data and identify opportunities for a more complete assessment of the environmental impact of tomato production. Among the reviewed publications, thirty-six papers were chosen for in-depth investigation. Additionally, the inventory data from seventeen of them were rigorously investigated, analyzed, and classified to be applied in the LCA of greenhouse tomato production. The selected papers cover forty-three scenarios involving the production of fresh greenhouse tomatoes in various regions. This review underlines the variations in inventory data among the studies and highlights inventory inputs that are commonly not considered in most assessments. In addition, the tomato production datasets of the commercial database Ecoinvent are discussed, and a recommendation on the usage of this database is provided. It is expected that future LCAs will disclose their inventory data in greater detail to improve transparency and help stakeholders in forming a more complete and informed opinion regarding LCA inventory content and its results.
Walker and Laplume (2014) argue that sustainability is inherently considered with long time-frames. At a broad level, and according to the principles of sustainable development, companies need to actively pursue sustainability practices (Linnenluecke and Griffiths 2010; Sharma 2003). That is, sustainable development implies the need for economic, social and environmental sustainability in business models (Bansal 2005; Bocken et al. 2013). Høgevold et al. (2014) found different organizational directions in connection with organizational efforts and priorities of sustainability initiatives through time.
Nuclear power plants (NPPs) produce a large amount of waste heat (WH) that has generally been perceived and regulated as an environmental liability. Given the abundance of WH from NPPs and the ubiquity of generally low-grade heat requirements of agricultural operations, from production to post-harvest, there is remarkable potential to harness NPP WH for agricultural uses with mutual economic advantages to NPPs and agricultural sectors. Taking advantage of this WH resource may improve the financial outlook of both the partnered power plants and agricultural businesses by providing an additional revenue stream, decreased heating costs, and a reduced carbon footprint. This review summarizes and interprets the historical discourse and research on agricultural applications of NPP WH in the U.S., and synthesizes technical constraints, unknowns, and opportunities for realizing the benefits of WH derived from the nuclear energy sector for agricultural value chains. Previous applications of WH in the agricultural industry demonstrate that this is a viable option to the benefit of the parties involved under the right conditions, but relatively little has been done to further this technology in the U.S. in recent years or explore novel applications. A revival of interest in this technology may be warranted given the current outlook for NPPs in the U.S. and a general interest in reducing the environmental impact of agriculture.
Current food production and consumption practices are depleting natural resources and polluting ecosystems at a rate that is unsustainable and are one of the main causes of anthropogenic climate change. If this trend does not change, externalities of food production will be exacerbated in future decades due to population growth and increasing living standards. A shift towards low impact diets has been proposed as part of the solution. The public food sector offers tremendous potential for influencing such a shift; however currently in the UK this potential is only partially exploited as national guidelines for public food procurement avoid promoting the adoption of low impact menus. This doctoral research aims at addressing this shortfall by creating a procedure for the design of low impact primary school menus. This is informed by a life-cycle based tool (the Environmental Assessment Tool of School meals, EATS) that enables catering companies and local authorities to self-assess the environmental impact of a meal in terms of its carbon and water footprint, with the purpose of identifying hotspot meals and comparing alternatives in the design of new menus. The data underlying EATS includes the results of a meta-analysis of the existing literature on the carbon footprint of 110 food products commonly used in the preparation of primary school meals in the UK. To validate EATS, a statistical analysis of the underlying data was performed, feedback from its potential users was collected, three case study analyses were developed, and the results provided were compared with existing studies.
The increase in international trade due to globalization is evident in southeast Spain, which has become the top exporter of fruit and vegetables. Countries within the European Union, such as Germany and France, emphasize the sustainability and environmental impacts of these products. Hence, a greater understanding of the environmental implications of transporting fruit and vegetables between their origin and their destination might improve the sustainability of this commercial activity.
The concept of a carbon footprint is a recognized environmental indicator that can be used for life cycle analysis. Here, a rigorous carbon footprint assessment was developed to examine the impact of using cardboard box containers to store and transport 1,000 t of fruit and vegetable products by road from their origin in Almería, Spain, to a destination market. The assessment included the fabrication of the cardboard boxes, the service they provide while transporting the products to the distribution center of the destination, and the end-of-life of the boxes for the six main products grown in Almería.
The results showed that storing and transporting 1,000 t of product by road emits between 58 t and 130 t of CO2e depending on the fruit or vegetable type and the destination market. The implications of the end-of-life scenarios with respect to the destination are also discussed. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was conducted for the transport distance. Lastly, biogenic CO2 production was also assessed according to standard carbon footprint assessment method.
Effective food policies in Europe require insight into the environmental impact of consumers’ diet to contribute to global nutrition security in an environmentally sustainable way. The present study therefore aimed to assess the environmental impact associated with dietary intake across four European countries, and to explain sources of variations in environmental impact by energy intake, demographics and diet composition. Individual-level dietary intake data were obtained from nationally-representative dietary surveys, by using two non-consecutive days of a 24-h recall or a diet record, from Denmark (DK, n = 1710), Czech Republic (CZ, n = 1666), Italy (IT, n = 2184), and France (FR, n = 2246). Dietary intake data were linked to a newly developed pan-European environmental sustainability indicator database that contains greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and land use (LU) values for ∼900 foods. To explain the variation in environmental impact of diets, multilevel regression models with random intercept and random slopes were fitted according to two levels: adults (level 1, n = 7806) and country (level 2, n = 4). In the models, diet-related GHGE or LU was the dependent variable, and the parameter of interest, i.e. either total energy intake or demographics or food groups, the exploratory variables. A 200-kcal higher total energy intake was associated with a 9% and a 10% higher daily GHGE and LU. Expressed per 2000 kcal, mean GHGE ranged from 4.4 (CZ) to 6.3 kgCO2eq/2000 kcal (FR), and LU ranged from 5.7 (CZ) to 8.0 m²*year/2000 kcal (FR). Dietary choices explained most of the variation between countries. A 5 energy percent (50 g/2000 kcal) higher meat intake was associated with a 10% and a 14% higher GHGE and LU density, with ruminant meat being the main contributor to environmental footprints. In conclusion, intake of energy, total meat and the proportion of ruminant meat explained most of the variation in GHGE and LU of European diets. Contributions of food groups to environmental footprints however varied between countries, suggesting that cultural preferences play an important role in environmental footprints of consumers. In particular, Findings from the present study will be relevant for national-specific food policy measures towards a more environmentally-friendly diet.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare the similarities and differences relating to sustainability initiatives between health-care organizations. The aim is to provide a framework of factors and their determinants to enable a profiling of organizational sustainability initiatives.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an inductive approach, judgmental sampling was applied to select relevant health-care organizations. Informants were identified according to their knowledge of their organizations’ sustainability initiatives.
Findings
Several factors and their determinants for characterizing differences and similarities were found. The results also reveal that organizational sustainability initiatives are either value-driven or business-driven.
Research limitations/implications
The reported framework of factors and their determinants serves the purpose of profiling organizational sustainability initiatives. Opportunities for further research are provided.
Practical implications
This paper provides managerial guidance for characterizing the differences and similarities with respect to organizational sustainability initiatives in relation to other organizations.
Originality/value
This study establishes a framework for characterizing organizational sustainability initiatives. It also contributes to reveal whether organizational sustainability initiatives are value – or business-driven and considers intrinsic-oriented differences and extrinsic-oriented similarities.
Sustainability initiatives are those which are dedicated to improving performance along the triple bottom line (environmental, social, and economic). However, it is argued that sustainability initiatives are easier to formulate than to implement (Gimenez and Tachizawa 2012).
Agrivoltaic systems are multi-output systems where both solar power and crops are produced on the same land. Unlike other land-based photovoltaics (PV), the agrivoltaic PV modules are ground mounted between crops at some height with a certain tilt. Alternatively, PV modules replace part of a greenhouse or are partially set either below or above a covering material. The system could become an important mitigation option for climate change. However, power generation by PV reduces sunlight transmittance and therefore reduces agricultural yield. An allocation method that will address the potential interference of PV with crops is required for life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate greenhouse gas mitigation. This study aims to develop a new allocation method (i.e., solar allocation) and compare the LCA results of the new and traditional allocation methods (i.e., system expansion and economic allocation). The partition rate of the solar allocation is derived from the ratio of the active area covered by PV to the greenhouse surface area and light transmittance. These methods were applied to an agrivoltaic tomato production system using protected horticulture with the introduction of organic photovoltaics as a case-study of a system in Japan.
The allocation methods considered in the present study could serve as potential methods in assessing life cycle−CO2 emissions. Above all, the solar allocation method can be used for many crops that will be influenced by PVs. Further improvement of the allocation method is required in cases where crop growth is less influenced by PVs (e.g., shadow-tolerant crops or transparent PV).
Proximity and in-season consumption criteria have been suggested as solutions for fruits and vegetables consumers to drive the economy to a more sustainable development. Using a new concept, seasonal avoided footprint by imports, we disentangle the role of period and country of origin. Although, as a general rule, consumers could reduce its footprint by choosing domestic produce, this is not always the case. Due to the high efficiency of Spanish domestic production in terms of both CO2e and water use (except for scarce water), imports from some regions, like Africa (green beans, pepper, tomato, banana, strawberry, oranges), contribute to significantly increase both water and carbon impacts. However, a monthly-basis analysis shows unsustainable hotspots for domestic production. Importing from France (apple, potato) or Portugal (tomato, strawberry) reduces both footprints, so Spanish local consumption would be bad for the environment. Hotspots are mainly concentrated in scarce water and, especially, for out-of-season vegetables during eleven months a year (savings up to 389%), nine months for out-of-season fruits and five months for in-season fruits. The results suggest the difficulty to generalize an easy environmental recommendation based on buying local fruits and vegetables: consumption must be analyzed on monthly/seasonal, products and countries basis.
Purpose
An online review was conducted on the availability of life-cycle assessment (LCA), water, and carbon footprinting studies in Sweden. The main purpose was to quantify the number of available studies, which may be of general interest to non-specialists or as background data for LCA practitioners. Additionally, results from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reports were also included.
Methods
The study used online searches conducted in Google and Google Scholar to obtain the publically available reports. Additionally, searches in ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Wiley were performed to obtain other peer-reviewed academic papers. Only English language results were included.
Results and discussion
LCAs and carbon footprinting studies were the most commonly conducted studies (13 LCA and 12 carbon footprinting studies), whereas water footprinting reports, while still largely available, were fewer in number. A number of GRI reports were also available with the majority of studies conducted for the financial services and real estate sectors. Several studies were in the form of university theses, while companies and research organizations conducted the remainder of research projects.
Conclusions
While several life-cycle assessments, carbon, and water footprinting studies were accessible via Google searches, given the interest in LCA in the country, e.g., the LCM2013 conference in Gothenburg and The Swedish Life Cycle Centre, more studies were expected.
Food production and consumption account for approximately one-third of households' environmental impact. Consumers thus play a major role in the shift towards more sustainable foods and diets. An
overall sustainability label or simple guidelines may enable consumers to make more environmentally friendly food choices, but whether such information-based tools improve consumers' ability to choose environmentally sustainable foods has not been empirically investigated. This study's online choice task experiment shows that eco-labels and guidelines marginally increased consumers' accuracy in selecting environmentally friendly foods. Respondents adhered, however, more to guidelines than to eco-labels and led to choices with lower environmental impact. In addition, respondents showed several misconceptions related to the environmental performance of protein products, which were resistant to both eco-labels and guidelines. These findings suggest that new, costly labels may not improve consumers' environmental judgements. Instead, addressing consumers' misconceptions and finding ways to promote
environmentally sustainable food purchases is essential.
The global impacts of food production
Food is produced and processed by millions of farmers and intermediaries globally, with substantial associated environmental costs. Given the heterogeneity of producers, what is the best way to reduce food's environmental impacts? Poore and Nemecek consolidated data on the multiple environmental impacts of ∼38,000 farms producing 40 different agricultural goods around the world in a meta-analysis comparing various types of food production systems. The environmental cost of producing the same goods can be highly variable. However, this heterogeneity creates opportunities to target the small numbers of producers that have the most impact.
Science , this issue p. 987
Farming is the foundation of our food system. While the prerequisite for farming is a clean environment and a diverse nature, agriculture is currently the cause of major environmental problems, including greenhouse gas and nitrogen emissions. The challenge to protect our environment and feed the world sometimes seem insurmountable, but solutions might be just around the corner. This report describes two food system scenarios for Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, where the majority of food is produced within the region using organic farming practices and where livestock is mainly fed on grass and by-products not suitable for human consumption. The results show that we could feed the projected Nordic population in 2030 on organic food, mostly grown within the region, while reducing the climate and nitrogen footprints of our food system.
As the economic costs of energy and the negative externalities associated with the combustion of fossil fuels threaten the economic viability of greenhouses in northern climates there is a renewed interest in the use of waste heat. This paper presents a technical and economic methodology to determine the viability of establishing waste heat greenhouses using the waste heat from industrial processes in northern climates. A case study is presented of an exchange between a tomato greenhouse and a flat glass manufacturing plant, which found the waste heat system is significantly more economic to operate than a purely natural gas system.
Anthropogenic warming is caused mainly by emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, with agriculture as a main contributor for the latter 2 gases. Other parts of the food system contribute carbon dioxide emissions that emanate from the use of fossil fuels in transportation, processing, retailing, storage, and preparation. Food items differ substantially when GHG emissions are calculated from farm to table. A recent study of approximately 20 items sold in Sweden showed a span of 0.4 to 30 kg CO(2) equivalents/kg edible product. For protein-rich food, such as legumes, meat, fish, cheese, and eggs, the difference is a factor of 30 with the lowest emissions per kilogram for legumes, poultry, and eggs and the highest for beef, cheese, and pork. Large emissions for ruminants are explained mainly by methane emissions from enteric fermentation. For vegetables and fruits, emissions usually are </=2.5 kg CO(2) equivalents/kg product, even if there is a high degree of processing and substantial transportation. Products transported by plane are an exception because emissions may be as large as for certain meats. Emissions from foods rich in carbohydrates, such as potatoes, pasta, and wheat, are <1.1 kg/kg edible food. We suggest that changes in the diet toward more plant-based foods, toward meat from animals with little enteric fermentation, and toward foods processed in an energy-efficient manner offer an interesting and little explored area for mitigating climate change.
The profile of seasonal foods has been raised in recent years, with information about ‘in-season’ produce being made available to consumers through a variety of channels, including television programmes, magazine articles and websites. ‘Eating seasonally’ has also increasingly been encouraged by government initiatives and supported by other agencies and organisations. This article draws on findings of recent research by ADAS, EuGeos and SERIO to explore the notion of ‘seasonal food’ and probe the link between ‘eating seasonally’ and a reduction of environmental impacts in the food chain.
The emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) were measured from a non nitrogen fertilized carrot (Daucus carota ssp. sativa) field on an organic soil in Sweden during one cropping and post-harvest season. The cumulative emission during the measuring period of 149 days was 41 (±2.8) kg N2O ha−1. Dividing the measuring period into a cropping and a post-harvest period revealed that the presence of carrots strongly stimulated N2O emissions, as the emission during the cropping period was one order of magnitude higher compared to the post-harvest period. The N2O emission from the carrot field were higher than fluxes reported from cereal crop and grass production, but in the same order as reported fluxes from vegetable cropping on organic soils. In conclusion, our results indicate that the cultivation of root vegetable, such as carrots, on organic soil can be a high point source for N2O emissions.
The possible contribution of local sales chains to the reduction of energy consumption has been hotly debated in recent years. Some authors establish a link between the reduction of distances traveled by food and lower energy consumption due to transportation, while others hold that local supply chains have a poor energy performance. This article engages this debate by comparing the rates of energy consumption attributable to different modes of distribution of fruits and vegetables in a region of France.By studying actors’ actual practices, we show that the establishment of local food systems leads to organizational efforts at the local level or in the form of geographically centralized networks which allow energy expenditures linked to distribution to be minimized. The studied chains’ performances are variable, from 13.5 to 44.8 GOE/€ (Gram of Oil Equivalent per euro) of product, bringing them close to long chains in the best examples. Comparison with other research underscores the diversity of methods which are put in place. They also show that energy performance remains very dependent on where the study was conducted. Ultimately this study invites us to better analyze the ways in which actors collaborate to optimize energy expenditures relative to the distribution of food products in local sales chains.
The large boreal peatland ecosystems sequester carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere due to a low oxygen pressure in waterlogged peat. Consequently they are sinks for CO2 and strong emitters of CH4. Drainage and cultivation of peatlands allows oxygen to enter the soil, which initiates decomposition of the stored organic material, and in turn CO2 and N2O emissions increase while CH4 emissions decrease. Compared to undrained peat, draining of organic soils for agricultural purposes increases the emissions of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, and N2O) by roughly 1t CO2 equivalents/ha per year. Although farmed organic soils in most European countries represent a minor part of the total agricultural area, these soils contribute significantly to national greenhouse gas budgets. Consequently, farmed organic soils are potential targets for policy makers in search of socially acceptable and economically cost-efficient measures to mitigate climate gas emissions from agriculture. Despite a scarcity of knowledge about greenhouse gas emissions from these soils, this paper addresses the emissions and possible control of the three greenhouse gases by different managements of organic soils. More precise information is needed regarding the present trace gas fluxes from these soils, as well as predictions of future emissions under alternative management regimes, before any definite policies can be devised.
Background, aim, and scopeCarbon footprint (CF) has become a hot topic as public awareness of climate change is placing demands on manufacturers to
declare the climate impact of their products. Calculating the CF of food products is complex and associated with unavoidable
uncertainty due to the inherent variability of natural processes. This study quantifies the uncertainty of a common food product
and discusses the results in relation to different types of CF systems for food product labelling.
Materials and methodsA detailed LCI with global warming potential as the only impact category was performed on King Edward table potatoes grown
in the Östergötland region of Sweden. Parameters were described using one probability distribution for spatial and temporal
variation and one separate distribution describing measuring/data uncertainty, allowing the effect of parameter resolution
on CF uncertainty to be studied. Monte Carlo simulation was used to quantify the overall uncertainty. The influence of individual
parameters on the CF was analysed and differences in CF for food products from different production systems, with and without
climate impact reduction rules, were simulated.
ResultsThe potato CF fell in the range 0.10–0.16kg CO2e per kilogram of potatoes with 95% certainty for an arbitrary year and field. Emissions of N2O from soil dominated the CF uncertainty. Locking the temporal variation to a specific year lowered the uncertainty range
by 19%. Parameter collection on a spatial scale of one field did not reduce the uncertainty. The most sensitive parameters
were the yield, the soil humus content and the emissions factors for N2O emissions from soil. Potatoes grown according to climate rules lowered the CF by 9% with a probability of 53% for an arbitrary
year and field.
DiscussionThe importance of yield, which proved to be the most influential parameter, is a common characteristic of agricultural products
in general, since the accumulated emissions from a cultivated area are divided across the yield from that area. Maximising
the yield reduces the CF but could have negative impacts on other environmental aspects. The purpose of the CF labelling scheme,
together with uncertainty analysis, needs to be considered when determining how the CF should be calculated, as an average
or for a specific year, farm, field, region, etc.
ConclusionsThe CF of a potato crop calculated for an arbitrary year and field varied between approximately -17% and +30% of the average
value with 95% certainty, showing that uncertainty analysis in the design, calculation and evaluation of food product CF labelling
schemes is important to ensure fair comparisons.
Recommendations and perspectivesSimilar studies comparing different production systems for the same type of product and products from different categories,
on large and small scale depending on the purpose of the CF system, are needed in order to determine how the CF of food products
can be compared and the precision with which data have to be collected in order to allow fair and effective comparison of
the CF of food products.
KeywordsCarbon declaration-Carbon footprint-Carbon labelling-Food products-Monte Carlo simulation-Table potatoes-Uncertainty analysis
Purpose
Calculating the carbon footprint (CF) of food is becoming increasingly important in climate change communication. To design effective CF labelling systems or reduction measures, it is necessary to understand the accuracy of the calculated CF values. This study quantified the uncertainty in the CF of wheat and of a common refined wheat-based product, pasta, for different resolutions of farm-level in-data to gain an increased understanding of the origins and magnitude of uncertainties in food CFs.
Methods
A ‘cradle-to-retail’ CF study was performed on Swedish pasta and wheat cultivated in the region of Skåne on mineral soils. The uncertainty was quantified, using Monte Carlo simulation, for wheat from individual farms and for the mixture of wheat used for pasta production during a year, as well as for the pasta production process.
Results and discussion
The mean pasta CF was 0.50 kg CO2e/kg pasta (0.31 kg CO2e/kg wheat before the milling process). The CF of wheat from one farm could not be determined more accurately than being in the range 0.22–0.56 kg CO2e/kg wheat, even though all farm-level primary data were collected. The wheat mixture CF varied much less, approximately ±10–20% from the mean (95% certainty) for different years. Reducing farm-level data collection to only the most influential parameters—yield, amount of N and regional soil conditions—increased the uncertainty range by between 6% and 19% for different years for the wheat mixture. The dominant uncertainty was in N2O emissions from soil, which was also the process that contributed most to the CF.
Conclusions
The variation in the wheat mix CF uncertainty range was greater between years, due to different numbers of farms being included for the different years, than between collecting all farm-level primary data or only the most influential parameters. More precise methods for assessing soil N2O emissions are needed to decrease the uncertainty significantly.
Recommendations
Due to the difficulties in calculating accurate values, finding other ways of differentiating between producers than calculating numerical CFs might be more fruitful and fair. When legislation requires numerical CF values, CF practitioners have little option but to continue using existing methods and data collection strategies. However, they can provide input on improvement, contribute to standardisation processes and help raise awareness and knowledge of the associated uncertainty in the data through studies like this one.
An environmental life cycle assessment was performed to investigate the environmental consequences of the life cycle of Hushållsost, a semi-hard cheese. The assessment identified those activities that contribute most to the cheese's environmental impact throughout its life cycle from extraction of ingredients to waste management. Milk production at the farm was identified as having the greatest environmental impact, followed by cheesemaking at the dairy, retailing, and the production of plastic wrapping. The environmental impact could be reduced by minimising wastage of milk and cheese throughout the life cycle, without any effect on the quality of the product. Increasing the yield of cheese would also bring about substantial improvements as less milk would have to be produced on farms.
This paper provides a critical commentary on the conception of food miles followed by an empirical application of food miles to two contrasting food distribution systems based on carbon emissions accounting within these systems. The comparison is between the carbon emissions resultant from operating a large-scale vegetable box system and those from a supply system where the customer travels to a local farm shop. The study is based on fuel and energy use data collected from one of the UK’s largest suppliers of organic produce. The findings suggest that if a customer drives a round-trip distance of more than 6.7 km in order to purchase their organic vegetables, their carbon emissions are likely to be greater than the emissions from the system of cold storage, packing, transport to a regional hub and final transport to customer’s doorstep used by large-scale vegetable box suppliers. Consequently some of the ideas behind localism in the food sector may need to be revisited.
Food consumption is associated with various environmental impacts, and consumers' food choices therefore represent important environmental decisions. In a large-scale survey, we examined consumers' beliefs about ecological food consumption and their willingness to adopt such behaviors. Additionally, we investigated in more detail how different motives and food-related attitudes influenced consumers' willingness to reduce meat consumption and to buy seasonal fruits and vegetables. We found consumers believed avoiding excessive packaging had the strongest impact on the environment, whereas they rated purchasing organic food and reducing meat consumption as least environmentally beneficial. Similarly, respondents appeared to be most unwilling to reduce meat consumption and purchase organic food. Taste and environmental motives influenced consumers' willingness to eat seasonal fruits and vegetables, whereas preparedness to reduce meat consumption was influenced by health and ethical motives. Women and respondents who preferred natural foods were more willing to adopt ecological food consumption patterns.
Sustainable development requires methods and tools to measure and compare the environmental impacts of human activities for the provision of goods and services (both of which are summarized under the term "products"). Environmental impacts include those from emissions into the environment and through the consumption of resources, as well as other interventions (e.g., land use) associated with providing products that occur when extracting resources, producing materials, manufacturing the products, during consumption/use, and at the products' end-of-life (collection/sorting, reuse, recycling, waste disposal). These emissions and consumptions contribute to a wide range of impacts, such as climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, tropospheric ozone (smog) creation, eutrophication, acidification, toxicological stress on human health and ecosystems, the depletion of resources, water use, land use, and noise-among others. A clear need, therefore, exists to be proactive and to provide complimentary insights, apart from current regulatory practices, to help reduce such impacts. Practitioners and researchers from many domains come together in life cycle assessment (LCA) to calculate indicators of the aforementioned potential environmental impacts that are linked to products-supporting the identification of opportunities for pollution prevention and reductions in resource consumption while taking the entire product life cycle into consideration. This paper, part 1 in a series of two, introduces the LCA framework and procedure, outlines how to define and model a product's life cycle, and provides an overview of available methods and tools for tabulating and compiling associated emissions and resource consumption data in a life cycle inventory (LCI). It also discusses the application of LCA in industry and policy making. The second paper, by Pennington et al. (Environ. Int. 2003, in press), highlights the key features, summarises available approaches, and outlines the key challenges of assessing the aforementioned inventory data in terms of contributions to environmental impacts (life cycle impact assessment, LCIA).
The aim of this study was to examine Australians' food-related environmental beliefs and behaviours. Questionnaires were posted to 500 randomly selected adults, with 223 questionnaires completed (58% response rate). Decreased use of packaging by food manufacturers was viewed as being the most important item to help the environment, while lower meat consumption was seen as least likely to help. Composting food scraps and purchase or consumption of locally produced foods were the most commonly performed food-related environmental behaviours, while use of organic products was the least commonly performed. Moderate consistency (rs=0.54) was found between reported beliefs and behaviours. Older people were more likely to perform certain food-related environmental behaviours, such as composting. Awareness of the impact on the environment of meat production, organic compared to conventional farming, and food packaging was low even among those who were found to already believe that food-related actions are important to help the environment, suggesting widespread consciousness raising is needed.
The issue of whether food miles are a relevant indicator for the environmental impacts associated with foods has received significant attention in recent years. It is suggested here that issues other than the distance travelled need to be considered. The argument is presented by illustrating the case for the provision of apples.
The effects of variability in primary energy requirements for apple cultivation and for other life cycle stages, seasonality (timing of consumption) and loss of produce during storage are studied in this paper, by comparing apples from different supplier countries for consumption in Europe.
Data sources for primary energy use (PEU) of apple production are identified ranging from 0.4-3.8 MJ/kg apples for European and Southern American countries and 0.4-0.7 MJ/kg for New Zealand. This variability is related to different yields and producer management practices in the different countries. Storage loss may range from 5% to 40% for storage periods between 4 and 10 months, and this has a significant effect on the results (e.g. increasing the total PEU by 8-16% when stored for 5-9 months in Europe as compared with a no loss and no storage situation). The storage periods and related storage losses change markedly through the year for imported (i.e. non-European) versus European apples.
The timing of consumption and related storage losses need to be included in the assessment, as this affects the order of preference for locally sourced versus imported apples. The variability in energy requirements in different life cycle stages, but particularly for the fruit production stage, is also significant in this comparative analysis.
Overall, it seems that there are similarities in the total PEU ranges for European and New Zealand apples during the Southern Hemisphere's apple season (European spring and summer). However, during the European autumn and winter (Northern Hemisphere apple season) PEU values are generally higher for apples imported from the Southern Hemisphere compared with European apples consumed in Europe. However, this latter observation may not hold true where apples for consumption in one European country are imported from another European country, because energy use for road transportation has a significant influence on the result.
Future studies comparing alternative sources of fresh produce need to account for ranges of data for the fruit production and storage stages, which reflect the seasonality of production.