Climate change mitigation opportunities based on carbon footprint estimates of dietary patterns in Peru

Abstract

Food consumption accounts for an important proportion of the world GHG emissions per capita. Previous studies have delved into the nature of dietary patterns, showing that GHG reductions can be achieved in diets if certain foods are consumed rather than other, more GHG intensive products. For instance, vegetarian and low-meat diets have proved to be less carbon intensive than diets that are based on ruminant meat. These environmental patterns, increasingly analyzed in developed nations, are yet to be assessed in countries liked Peru where food purchase represents a relatively high percentage of the average household expenditure, ranging from 38% to 51% of the same. Therefore, food consumption can be identified as a potential way to reduce GHG emissions in Peru. However, the Peruvian government lacks a specific strategy to mitigate emissions in this sector, despite the recent ratification of the Paris Accord. In view of this, the main objective of this study is to analyze the environmental impacts of a set of 47 Peruvian food diet profiles, including geographical and socioeconomic scenarios. In order to do this, Life Cycle Assessment was used as the methodological framework to obtain the overall impacts of the components in the dietary patterns observed and primary data linked to the composition of diets were collected from the Peruvian National Institute for Statistics (INEI). Life cycle inventories for the different products that are part of the Peruvian diet were obtained from a set of previous scientific articles and reports regarding food production. Results were computed using the IPCC 2013 assessment method to estimate GHG emissions. Despite variations in GHG emissions from a geographical perspective, no significant differences were observed between cities located in the three Peruvian natural regions (i.e., coast, Andes and Amazon basin). In contrast, there appears to be a strong, positive correlation between GHG emissions and social expenditure or academic status. When compared to GHG emissions computed in the literature for developed nations, where the average caloric intake is substantially higher, diet-related emissions in Peru were in the low range. Our results could be used as a baseline for policy support to align nutritional and health policies in Peru with the need to reduce the environmental impacts linked to food production.

Carbon footprint and nutritional quality of different human dietary choices

“…To do so, Scopus, Web of Knowledge (ISI) and Google scholar have been managed considering only English language peer-review studies. According to it, although more than 50 studies have been found assessing environmental impacts of country diets, in total 21 peer-review studies (Wallén et al, 2004;Risku-Norja et al, 2009;Muñoz et al, 2010;Pathak et al, 2010;Tukker et al, 2011;Vieux et al, 2012;Meier and Christen, 2013;Sáez-Almendros et al, 2013;Saxe et al, 2013;Vieux et al, 2013;Werner et al, 2013;Wilson et al, 2013;Scarborough et al, 2014;van Dooren et al, 2014;Röös et al, 2015;van Dooren et al, 2016;Castañé and Antón, 2017;Pairotti et al, 2017;Vázquez-Rowe et al, 2017;Esteve-Llorens et al, 2018;van de Kamp et al, 2018) have been identified fulfilling the selection criteria.…”

“…It is important to take in mind that the number of calories that an average person needs daily depends on several factors, such as the minimum and average dietary energy requirements (Vázquez-Rowe et al, 2017), level of activity, gender, age, weight, geographical location and cultural issues (EFSA, 2009). The carbon footprint has been considered as a proxy for environmental impact in line with the studies checked and taking into consideration the awareness from the research community and society on the reduction of GHGs emission and counteracting the climate change effects.…”

Diets, Food Choices and Environmental Impacts across an Urban-Rural Interface in Northern Vietnam

“…The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 [1] declared that the impact of a shift to dietary guidelines, stratified by socioeconomic subgroups [17]. Researchers in Peru modeled the environmental impacts of several dietary patterns using individual dietary data and explored heterogeneity by socioeconomic status and education level [19]. An improved understanding of the complex relationship between different geographies and socio-demographic strata is warranted to identify leverage points for promoting sustainable food programming and policy in LMICs.…”

The carbon footprint of meat and dairy proteins: a practical perspective to guide low carbon footprint dietary choices

“…We base our calculations on the data and methodology presented in previous sections. The total protein intake coming from meat and dairy is 62.8 g / person / day 100 . The carbon footprint of the diet is /year 101 .…”