Environmentally friendly food consumption: What does this mean? Dr. Niels Jungbluth ESU-services Ltd., Uster, Switzerland
ESU 17th SETAC Europe LCA Symposium Budapest, 28. February 2011
Food and Environmental Impacts
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Contents • Environmental impacts of food consumption • Conclusions concerning food purchases from the consumers point of view • Public interest • Open research questions Page 3
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Which questions to be answered? Levels of Consumer Decision Making (DML) All need fields (mobility, nourishing) Need field nourishing: meat or vegetables? Product group: tomatoes or carrots? Variants of one product: organic or greenhouse tomatoes?
One product: How is it packed? Processing: salad or cooked? PageIt 4is possible to address different types of questions, but not with www.esu-services.ch one analysis
Which Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
emissions
resources
environmental impacts
carbon footprint ecological (kg CO2-eq) footprint (m2a)
ecological scarcity 2006 (UBP)
ReCiPe (points)
abiotic resources, incl. water nuclear energy fossil energy land occupation land transformation climate change ozone depletion toxicity summer smog acidification nutrification endocrine disruptors noise, odour, litter ionising radiation waste (incl. radioactive waste)
It is necessary to apply LCIA methods cover a range of workload, environmental impacts Ecological footprint: easythat to understand, low
Ecological Carbon Footprint: scarcity: Comprehensive, Easy to understand, reflects Internationally Swiss policy accepted, targets, used Lower for presentation we use the eco-points globally known, only twocomprehensive issues: and land www.esu-services.ch use assessment of products, workload, companies Not and CO2 for the whole economy PageFor 5 this
Overall importance of nutrition in total consumption of households 100% 90% 80%
services
70%
mobility
60%
health care
50%
housing, non-energy
40% 30%
energy use in house
20%
clothing
10%
nutrition
0% energy demand
climate change
ecological scarcity
Nutrition causes about 30% of environmental impacts of consumption footprint and energy underestimates agricultural impacts PageCarbon 6 www.esu-services.ch
Share of product groups
Animal products (meat, milk, eggs) are most important beverages like wine, coffee, alcoholics cannotwww.esu-services.ch be neglected PageLuxury 7
Environmental impacts of meat purchases
production dominates total impacts of meat products PageAgricultural 8 www.esu-services.ch
Impacts of vegetable purchases
All characteristics are important for plant products vegetables/fruits PageAir 9 transports and heated greenhouse cause highest burdens forwww.esu-services.ch
Canteen Meals: Meals at canteen kitchens: ecological scarcity 2006
comparison of vegetarian and meat based recipes 9000
starch side dish 8000
vegetable side dish 7000
ø 6622 Pts.
Ecopoints/Meal
6000
main dish
1/3 for vegetarian
5000
4000
3000
ø 2085 Pts. 2000
1000
0 braised meat chicken chop of pork, lambstew veal sliced in mean meat beef, french drumstick, carrots, and cream, meals fries courgette, roesti vegetables, carrots, french fries carrots, roesti french fries
curry with vegetables and rice
risotto
lasagne wit spaetzle with vegetables vegetables
meals have considerable lower impacts PageVegetarian 10
tofu in cream, carrots, roesti
mean vegetarian meals
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Conclusions for Consumers Eat vegetarian. Consumption of fish, meat and animal products should be reduced to 2 portions a 180 g a week
Air transported products should be avoided Buy seasonal. Less products from heated greenhouse should be bought Reduce luxury products like wine, coffee and chocolate Consider energy in private transportation and the household Reduce wastage and overconsumption Page 11
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Influencing consumers behaviour with LCA • Knowledge is available for consumers • LCA studies sometimes confusing if no clear result
• Lower options for reducing environmental impacts compared to other fields like mobility and housing • People tend to follow the easy things and not the important things, e.g. recycling of packages instead reducing meat consumption Stress the points that are really important and not what is scientifically surprising
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Public interest on LCA studies of food • High public interest allows to teach life cycle thinking • Many people mix health aspects and environmental
aspects when looking at food • Sensations, even if wrong, are more interesting than confirmation of former research • Detailed comparisons should be more interesting for producers and distributors than for consumers
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What we know • LCA covering a range of environmental impacts is necessary, Carbon footprinting might be misleading • Reduction of animal products is the main issue
• There is always an exception from the general rule
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Outlook and open research questions • Good models to address regional variation and specific types of emissions in agriculture
• More research on processed food and outdoor consumption is necessary (eating home is a phase out model) • Level of sustainable meat consumption • More LCA research on food ingredients like flavours
• More data on wastage in all stages and its inclusion in LCA are needed Page 15
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Granted, my car consumes a lot ... But, Your Californian asparagus needs also 5 liters per kg (in Switzerland)!
Today I can enjoy the local asparagus, But it took me 950 liters of oil to travel 18'777 km to California!
Information about our studies www.esu-services.ch/publications/food/ the impacts of Your food consumption www.ulme.ethz.ch PageCalculate 16 www.esu-services.ch