Surveying the Environmental Footprint of Urban Food Consumption

Abstract

Summary Assessments of urban metabolism (UM) are well situated to identify the scale, components, and direction of urban and energy flows in cities and have been instrumental in benchmarking and monitoring the key levers of urban environmental pressure, such as transport, space conditioning, and electricity. Hitherto, urban food consumption has garnered scant attention both in UM accounting (typically lumped with “biomass”) and on the urban policy agenda, despite its relevance to local and global environmental pressures. With future growth expected in urban population and wealth, an accounting of the environmental footprint from urban food demand (“foodprint”) is necessary. This article reviews 43 UM assessments including 100 cities, and a total of 132 foodprints in terms of mass, carbon footprint, and ecological footprint and situates it relative to other significant environmental drivers (transport, energy, and so on) The foodprint was typically the third largest source of mass flows (average is 0.8 tonnes per capita per annum) and carbon footprint (average is 2.1 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalents per capita per annum) in the reviewed cities, whereas it was generally the largest driver of urban ecological footprints (average is 1.2 global hectares per capita per annum), with large deviations based on wealth, culture, and urban form. Meat and dairy are the primary drivers of both global warming and ecological footprint impacts, with little relationship between their consumption and city wealth. The foodprint is primarily linear in form, producing significant organic exhaust from the urban system that has a strong, positive correlation to wealth. Though much of the foodprint is embodied within imported foodstuffs, cities can still implement design and policy interventions, such as improved nutrient recycling and food waste avoidance, to redress the foodprint.

Integrating lifecycle assessment and urban metabolism at city level: Comparison between Spanish cities

“…Cities can be considered as living organisms, driven by material and energy flows (González-García, Manteiga, Moreira, & Feijoo, 2018a). Modern cities can neither meet the demand for bulk resources nor assimilate their residues within their limits (Goldstein, Birkved, Fernández, & Hauschild, 2017), and urban metabolism (UM) is therefore an important framework with which to assess the demand for resources and generation of waste in cities, although the social and economic dimensions are highly complex and not well integrated into UM assessments (Chester et al, 2012). UM is a concept that was introduced by Burgess (1925) to analyze urban growth from a sociologist's perspective.…”

Diets, Food Miles, and Environmental Sustainability of Urban Food Systems: Analysis of Nine Indian Cities

“…• Supporting Information S1 demanding agri-food in cities, such as commercial establishments (i.e., restaurants and hotels) and foodprocessing industries, often go ignored and unquantified entirely-an important oversight in cities where residents might not be the predominant users (Goldstein et al, 2016).…”

An urban systems framework to assess the trans-boundary food-energy-water nexus: implementation in Delhi, India

“…Cities have also started to recognize that urban demand for FEW has far-reaching environmental impacts both within and outside city boundaries. In an analysis of over 200 urban metabolism studies, 100 cities were found to have included the trans-boundary embodied energy of food production in their carbon accounts (Goldstein et al 2016). The above examples illustrate that cities are increasingly interested in quantifying the impact of their FEW supplies on the larger environment, as well as in reverse, the risk posed by the environment on their supplies.…”

“…First, methods must be clarified for quantifying community-wide FEW demand by homes, visitors, businesses and industries. A review by Goldstein et al (2016) notes that cities have previously used ad hoc methods, often only capturing residential food demand, but not that of visitors or food processing industries, thus the authors concluded that 'urban foodprint was underestimated in studies where the scope of urban metabolic activities beyond the household boundary were excluded ' . Because city policies have potential to address diverse actors within their jurisdiction (homes, businesses, and industries), developing methods to assess FEWdemand by all three user-categories is important.…”