Environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe

Abstract

Food consumption is amongst the main drivers of environmental impacts. On one hand, there is the need\ud to fulfil a fundamental human need for nutrition, and on the other hand this poses critical threats to the\ud environment. In order to assess the environmental impact of food consumption, a lifecycle assessment\ud (LCA)-based approach has been applied to a basket of products, selected as being representative of EU\ud consumption. A basket of food products was identified as representative of the average food and\ud beverage consumption in Europe, reflecting the relative importance of the products in terms of mass and\ud economic value. The products in the basket are: pork, beef, poultry, milk, cheese, butter, bread, sugar,\ud sunflower oil, olive oil, potatoes, oranges, apples, mineral water, roasted coffee, beer and pre-prepared\ud meals. For each product in the basket, a highly disaggregated inventory model was developed based\ud on a modular approach, and built using statistical data. The environmental impact of the average food\ud consumption of European citizens was assessed using the International Reference Life Cycle Data System\ud (ILCD) methodology. The overall results indicate that, for most of the impact categories, the consumed\ud foods with the highest environmental burden are meat products (beef, pork and poultry) and dairy\ud products (cheese, milk and butter). The agricultural phase is the lifecycle stage that has the highest\ud impact of all the foods in the basket, due to the contribution of agronomic and zootechnical activities.\ud Food processing and logistics are the next most important phases in terms of environmental impacts, due\ud to their energy intensity and the related emissions to the atmosphere that occur through the production\ud of heat, steam and electricity and during transport. Regarding the end-of-life phase, human excretion and\ud wastewater treatments pose environmental burdens related to eutrophying substances whose environmental\ud impacts are greater than those of the agriculture, transports and processing phases. Moreover,\ud food losses which occur throughout the whole lifecycle, in terms of agricultural/industrial and domestic\ud food waste, have also to be taken into consideration, since they can amount to up to 60% of the initial\ud weight of the food products. The results of the study go beyond the mere assessment of the potential\ud impacts associated with food consumption, as the overall approach may serve as a baseline for testing\ud eco-innovation scenarios for impact reduction as well as for setting targets

Modelling, assessing, and ranking public procurement options for a climate-friendly catering service

“…The use of food proxies, instead of the actual food items that are consumed, has strengths and weaknesses. The use of proxy products has been applied in several consumption-oriented LCA studies to specifically assess the impacts of certain representative foods consumed in a specific region (Notarnicola et al 2017). For example, Muñoz et al (2010) assessed annual Spanish food consumption based on LCA studies available in the literature on food proxies for Spanish food purchased by households, catering, restaurants, and institutions.…”

“…Eberle and Fels (2016) selected some proxies for their study based on their share of the product group and on data availability. Furthermore, in Notarnicola et al (2017), a basket of food products was identified as a representative of average European food and beverage consumption, in order to assess the environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe. According to Notarnicola et al (2017), the selected food proxies reflected the relative importance of the products in terms of mass and economic value.…”

“…Furthermore, in Notarnicola et al (2017), a basket of food products was identified as a representative of average European food and beverage consumption, in order to assess the environmental impacts of food consumption in Europe. According to Notarnicola et al (2017), the selected food proxies reflected the relative importance of the products in terms of mass and economic value. Moreover, proxy products are also used in studies combining 'bottom-up' and 'topdown' assessment methods, such as hybrid input-output LCAs (Pairotti et al 2015).…”

Detecting unsustainable pressures exerted on biodiversity by a company. Application to the food portfolio of a retailer

“…Consequently, the scope of study was restricted to the food products portfolio. Agriculture production is identified as the main hotspot in the environmental footprint of food products and as the primary single driver of biodiversity loss, with quite a strong scientific consensus (Colomb et al, 2015b;Kok et al, 2014;Notarnicola et al, 2017;Steinfeld et al, 2006). So, the scope of the quantitative assessment was circumscribed to the food portfolio of product (PoP) at the agricultural production phase.…”

Multi-objective decision-making for dietary assessment and advice

“…For instance, consuming meat has a much larger ecological footprint than consuming legumes and grains (Notarnicola et al, 2017). As a consequence, it might be much more sustainable to satisfy protein requirements via legumes and grains than via meat.…”