Life cycle environmental impacts of food away from home and mitigation strategies—a review

Dai, Tao; Yang, Yi; Lee, Ross; Fleischer, Amy S.; Wemhoff, Aaron P.

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110471

Cited by 29 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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Section: Backgroundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mitigation strategies for reducing food waste include promoting actions against food waste, advancing farming practices and transportation technology, and improving energy use efficiency (Reynolds et al, 2019;Dai et al, 2020). Willett et al (2019) forecast that reducing the total amount of global food loss and waste by 50% on the current basis can reduce the GHG emissions of the global food system by 6.12% in 2050.…”

Section: Caer 144mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Agricultural carbon footprint and food security: an assessment of multiple carbon mitigation strategies in China

Kong

Wang

et al. 2022

CAER

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PurposeTo achieve the dual goals of decarbonization and food security, this paper examines China's carbon footprint reduction in 2050 based on current mitigation strategies.Design/methodology/approachConsidering publications as featured evidence, this study develops an investigation of agricultural decarbonization in China. First, the authors summarize the mitigation strategies for agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the existing literature. Second, the authors demonstrate the domestic food production target in 2050 and the projection target's projected life-cycle-based GHG emissions at the commodity level. Lastly, the authors forecast China's emission removal in the agri-food sector in 2050 concerning current mitigation strategies and commodity productions. The authors highlight the extent to which each mitigation strategy contributes to decarbonization in China.FindingsPractices promoting sustainable development in the agri-food sector significantly contribute to GHG emission removal. The authors find mitigation strategies inhibiting future GHG emissions in the agri-food sector comprise improving nitrogen use efficiency in fertilizers, changing food consumption structure, manure management, cover crops, food waste reduction, dietary change of livestock and covered manure. A 10% improvement in nitrogen use efficiency contributes to 5.03% of GHG emission removal in the agri-food sector by 2050. Reducing food waste and food processing from 30% to 20% would inhibit 1.59% of the total GHG emissions in the agri-food sector.Originality/valueThis study contributes to policy discussions by accounting for agricultural direct and indirect emission components and assessing the dynamic changes in those related components. This study also extends existing research by forecasting to which extent the decarbonization effects implemented by current mitigation strategies can be achieved while meeting 2050 food security in China.

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Section: Backgroundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Caer 144mentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural carbon footprint and food security: an assessment of multiple carbon mitigation strategies in China

Kong

Wang

et al. 2022

CAER

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“…Limiting global warming to 1.5 • C above preindustrial levels would require major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in all economic sectors [13]. At the same time, climate change adaptation and mitigation is one of the greatest challenges facing food production and consumption in the world [14]. Increases in agricultural intensification on a regional and global scale generates serious environmental impacts, such as the reduction of biodiversity [15,16], an increase in greenhouse gas emissions [17], soil degradation [18], as well as a decrease in food security and an increase in the dependence on external resources [19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building an Agroecological Process towards Agricultural Sustainability: A Case Study from Southern Spain

et al. 2021

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The urgent need to implement agricultural systems that provide greater sustainability and resilience to the challenges of the climate change process has meant that alternative paradigms for agri-food systems and agriculture have become more relevant in recent times. In this study, we present the building process and consolidation of an agro-ecological project (Extiercol) in a rural area of southern Spain, with a prolonged depopulation process and close connections to nearby urban areas. Through participatory action research, the specific objectives of this study are (1) to describe the agroecological collective process from its creation by a youth association to its establishment as a viable agricultural project; (2) to identify the drivers for the development of this type of transition process towards agricultural sustainability and (3) to analyse urban-rural alliances in the establishment of agroecological projects. Finally, the replicability of this project was assessed, with a special focus on the main barriers to be addressed in order to implement this agricultural system such as difficult to land access or a negative perception of sustainable management by farmers. Through this study we have shown how the connection between the food production area and nearby urban areas can be achieved through an agroecological project.

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“…It contributes considerably to an array of global problems, from climate change, air pollution, water quality deterioration, to biodiversity loss (Tilman et al, 1994;Ongley, 1996;Mosier et al, 1998;Aneja et al, 2009;Qin and Horvath, 2020a;Suh et al, 2020;Tao et al, 2020). The search is on for sustainable strategies across the food supply chain to reduce agriculture's environmental impacts (Tilman et al, 2001;Mueller et al, 2012;Springmann et al, 2018;Dai et al, 2020;Qin and Horvath, 2020b). One strategy that has received increasing attention is a dietary shift toward healthy foods (Pimentel and Pimentel, 2003;Tilman and Clark, 2014;Springmann et al, 2016;Godfray et al, 2018;Willett et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-linearity in Marginal LCA: Application of a Spatial Optimization Model

et al. 2021

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Typical applications of LCA assume that the magnitude of life-cycle impact grows proportionally to the volume of demand, while in reality the additional impact due to marginal increase in demand may differ from the average impact. In the literature, the calculation of marginal life-cycle impacts often involves the use of optimization models, where typically the total economic costs are minimized. However, modeling spatially explicit marginal responses of a system involving multiple producers and consumers has not been discussed in LCA literature. In this paper, we demonstrate a spatial optimization technique for modeling marginal responses of a multi-producer, multi-consumer system. Our model determines the optimal production-by-location mix and associated environmental stressor at minimum systems cost. We demonstrate the model using a preliminary case study on blue water consumption by potato. We collected state-by-state data on potato yield, cost of potato production, and water use for irrigation, as well as interstate transportation fuel costs. We also estimated the marginal increase in demand for potato following USDA's recommended diet. The results show that the cradle-to-gate blue water consumption of potatoes based on 2016 demand was 96 m3/ton potato, which changes non-linearly along with the growth of potato demands. In order to meet the USDA's recommended diet, the additional demand on potato (530,000 ton per year) would result in a 29% lower blue water consumption per ton of potato (68 m3/ton) as compared to the average result of the current production system. In addition, we tested the model to analyze the marginal impacts under two scenarios: (1) high fuel tax and (2) high water price. The preliminary results indicate that water pricing is more effective than a fuel tax increase in reducing the marginal blue water consumption of potato based on our scenarios of the recommended diet demand. The results demonstrate that our model can be used to understand the non-linear behavior of marginal effect over demand crease, and for testing alternative policy scenarios involving a system with multiple producers and consumers across regions.

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Life cycle environmental impacts of food away from home and mitigation strategies—a review

Cited by 29 publications

References 93 publications

Agricultural carbon footprint and food security: an assessment of multiple carbon mitigation strategies in China

Agricultural carbon footprint and food security: an assessment of multiple carbon mitigation strategies in China

Building an Agroecological Process towards Agricultural Sustainability: A Case Study from Southern Spain

Non-linearity in Marginal LCA: Application of a Spatial Optimization Model

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