Eating green? Food, drinks and the environment [Archived]

Summary

In recent years, the concept of environmental footprinting has gained traction among policymakers and has become a selling argument for the food and drinks industry.

As a result, a growing range of indicators have been developed to reduce the environmental impact of the food industry and help consumers to make more sustainable choices.

The ecological footprint is a well-known concept which compares human consumption with the Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. This overall indicator is now being subdivided into a series of smaller subsets, including:

• The carbon footprint, which refers to the total amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by a product, an event or an individual.
• The water footprint, which calculates the total volume of freshwater used to produce goods or services.

A series of concepts have also been coined specifically for the food and drink sector. The term 'food miles', for instance, was first introduced in the UK in the early 1990s and refers to the transport emissions of a given food product from the moment of production until it hits the supermarket shelves.

But food miles – shorthand for carbon emissions – are only one aspect of the total environmental impact of food. With sustainable consumption and production climbing up the political agenda, food companies, under pressure from environmental groups, have started looking at other aspects as well.

The total environmental footprint of food, if calculated thoroughly, should also take into account the land, water and energy involved in growing, producing and supplying food – from farm to fork. Following this logic, it should include the impact of the farming method, a separate footprint of fertiliser and pesticides used, another for packaging materials and animal feed, as well as the carbon footprint of refrigeration, transport and cooking.

According to the European Commission, the food and drink sector contributes to some 23% of global resource use, 18% of greenhouse gas emissions and 31% of acidifying emissions.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) recently noted that agriculture was putting most pressure on the environment during the food chain lifecycle, with beef and dairy production causing the highest emissions. Food processing, meanwhile, is not seen as a significant contributor.

Issues

Difficulties in making accurate measurements

Today there is no uniformly applied assessment methodology for measuring the environmental impact of food.

Making accurate and meaningful measurements is complicated by the high diversity of food and drinks, which contributes to the challenge of creating a harmonised assessment tool.

'Holistic' methods available include standardised life-cycle assessments (LCAs), which are considered too complex and too expensive for the food and drinks sector.

Others are more pointed and measure for example the carbon footprint, the water footprint, the CO2 content of packaging, the ability to recycle a product, the modes of transport used (air, road or rail) or the type of agriculture (organic vs. conventional).

At the beginning of the production chain is agriculture, which is widely considered to account for the majority of a food product's environmental impact over its whole life cycle.

Subsequent stages in the production chain, such as transport, processing and packaging, are believed to be less significant, with some exceptions.

Meat seen as top polluter

Moreover, the ecological footprint of food and drinks products varies greatly.

According to the Swedish authorities, one kilo of beef, for example, contributes up to 15-25 kilos of greenhouse gases, which is ten times more than the carbon footprint of the equivalent amount of chicken.

Animal products generally have a higher climate impact than vegetable products – often some 2–30 kg more CO2 equivalents per kilo. The exceptions are milk and certain dairy products, which have a carbon footprint of around 1–2 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilo.

Among vegetable products, rice is said to be "in a class of its own". It emits very high amounts of greenhouse gases as a result of the methane generated by rice paddies. Vegetables cultivated in greenhouses heated by fossil fuels also have a heavier climate impact than fruit, root crops and vegetables cultivated in the open air, for example.

But the carbon footprint of different foods also depends on where they were produced and how they are transported. For instance, one of the arguments currently put forward for refusing to liberalise beef trade with Latin America is that the CO2 emissions associated with Brazilian beef are at least double those of beef produced in the EU.

According to the Water Footprint Network, it can take an average of 140 litres of water to produce one cup of coffee, whereas producing one litre of milk requires 1,000 litres of water. 3,000 litres are needed to produce one kilo of rice and a whopping 16,000 litres are needed to produce one kilo of beef, according to the NGO.

Water imported into Europe via the agribusiness sector is referred to as the 'virtual water' trade.

Environmental groups also talk about the "land footprint" of food as agriculture uses up to 80% of usable land globally. In the EU, agricultural land covers some 44% of the bloc's territory.

Efforts to reduce food waste

Food waste presents another problem with broad nutritional and environmental impacts. A McKinsey Global Institute report says that the world produces 10 million tonnes of edible waste each day, or up to 30% of all food.

In Europe, most waste comes from end consumers – such as households and restaurants. But in the developing world – where the need is often greatest – most waste occurs in the production phase because of lack of storage, refrigeration or poor distribution systems.

The EU Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) is intended to spur recycling and reuse of products, and requires EU countries to separate bio-waste – such as food throwaways and garden clippings – and to provide composting facilities.

However, compliance varies widely, especially between wealthier northern countries and the newest EU members, Bulgaria and Romania, where recycling programmes are still embryonic.

In January 2012, MEPs declared in a resolution that food waste is unsustainable and unethical in a world facing population growth and rising nutritional challenges. The resolution called for the European Commission and members states to:

• Take “radical measures” to reduce waste – “from farm to fork” - by 50% before 2025.
• Improve enforcement of existing EU and national government sanitation laws that mandate recycling of bio-degradable waste.
• Set food waste-prevention targets for member states under the current waste-reduction target to be in place by 2014.
• Declare 2013 the 'European Year Against Food Waste'.

MEPs also encouraged changes to food packaging to reduce confusion over “best buy”, “sell by” and “use by” labels found on most packaged products.

But such measures may only have limited impact. There is little wiggle room in expiry dates, with consumer groups and retailers themselves wary of health risks and choosy buyers overlooking foods that are not at peak freshness.

The Commission has already taken steps to address some of the MEPs’ concerns, such as setting targets to eliminate landfill disposal by 2020.

European food sustainability round table

In order to find an accepted methodology for measuring the food sector's environmental impact, the European Commission has launched a platform that brings together the numerous intermediaries in the food supply chain.

The European Food Sustainable Consumption and Production Round Table was launched in 2009 to address the proliferation of different and sometimes competing schemes and methodologies developed by public authorities, retailers and producers.

The stakeholder group has embarked on the gigantic task of assessing 45 existing methodologies against a number of agreed guiding principles, according to which the environmental impact of a food product needs to be analysed at all stages of its lifecycle. Ultimately, the group is expected to adopt a "harmonised framework methodology for the environmental assessment of food and drink products," to be finalised by the end of 2011.

One of the major incentives for industrialists to participate in the group's work is the prospect of making green claims to consumers while avoiding accusations of 'green-washing'.

The EU executive stresses the importance of "assessing individual products, to know at what stage of their life cycle their biggest environmental pressure lies and compare products".

The platform is co-chaired by the European Commission and food supply chain partners, and is supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Environment Agency.

In parallel, the Commission's in-house research body, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), has been working since 2005 to identify reliable lifecycle assessments, but not just for food products. The JRC is also developing a common European database to exchange information. 

Swedish initiative rejected as counter-productive

In May 2009, Sweden became the first EU country to adopt guidelines for climate-friendly food choices. The Swedish document lists various facts on the environmental impact of different foods, as well as the effects on health of consuming different foodstuffs.

"With a few exceptions, healthy food choices can also go hand-in-hand with choices that are good for the environment," the guidelines read.

The Swedish authorities recommended that citizens eat meat less often and in smaller quantities. Further recommendations range from eating seasonal, locally-produced fruit, vegetables and berries, avoiding bottled water, soda and palm oil, and limiting rice consumption as its cultivation produces methane. 

However, following a complaint from the European Commission, Sweden withdrew its proposal and guidelines for eco-smart food choices in November 2010.

The EU executive, together with Romania, considered that the Swedish proposals encouraged the purchase of (Swedish) locally-produced goods at the expense of those from other countries and undermined the principle of free movement of goods within the common market.

Positions

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has singled out the environmental effects of food consumption in Europe as being "large compared with those of other consumption activities".

This is particularly the case when taking into account the indirect effects of food production, processing and transport, the agency says. These include the impact of farming and industry on water, air and soil, as well as livestock emissions, over-fishing and packaging waste. The most pressure on the environment comes from the agricultural production phase.

The EEA stresses that "consumer diet choices can significantly influence use of resources and environmental effects of production, retail and distribution phases," and encourages consumers to opt for organic food, adopt a less meat-intensive diet and choose local and seasonal fruits and vegetables.

In its 2009 study on the 'Water we eat', the agency suggests that making farmers pay real prices for publicly managed irrigation systems could push them to avoid waste and adopt more sustainable practices.

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) notes that "conversion of plant energy and proteins into edible animal products is a generally inefficient use of resources" like land, water, fertilisers and fossil energy.

"This can be illustrated by the fact that, for each EU citizen, every day almost three kilogrammes of feed is consumed by EU livestock, 0.8 kilogrammes of which [is] in cereals and 0.8 kilogrammes in grass (dry matter). This feed is converted into 0.1 kilogrammes of meat and 0.8 kilogrammes of milk, being the average EU consumption," it added.

The agency suggests that European consumers' appetite for meat, dairy and fish, which is twice the global average, leads to "a range of negative impacts, such as extensive land use (also outside Europe), biodiversity loss and human health risks".

It argues that possible solutions for these issues need to be considered within an EU context, for example reducing consumption of meat, dairy and fish, improving animal husbandry and fisheries, reducing food loss and introducing policies to change consumption patterns. "For the EU to achieve more sustainable livestock production and fisheries, it would be vital to utilise the coming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy," it said.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is pushing to improve the image of edible insects, which it describes as "a serious alternative for conventional production or other animal-based protein sources, either for direct human consumption, or indirectly as feedstock".

Because insects are cold blooded, they have a high food conversion rate, with crickets, for example, needing six times less feed than cattle to produce the same amount of protein, the FAO says. "They also emit less greenhouse gases than conventional livestock" and "the meat yield after processing is also much higher for insects (e.g. crickets 80%) than for beef (55%), pork (70%) or lamb (35%)".

According to the FAO, there are about 1,700 edible insect species and the most important ones are in the orders of Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterfly and moths), Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants), Orthoptera (grasshoppers and crickets), Isoptera (termites), Hemiptera (true bugs), and Homoptera (cicadas).

"Reliable figures mention the consumption of 250 insect species in Africa, 500 in Mexico, 180 in China, and 160 in the Mekong area. Although Japan is not a tropical country, a number of insect species are popular food, in particular wasps," the FAO added.

Maude Barlow, former special adviser on water issues to the president of the UN General Assembly, has called into question the European way of life, with some consumers wanting strawberries all year round. Meanwhile, she noted, African lakes are dying, because the berries suck up water which is then shipped out of the country. According to Barlow, Great Britain alone "imports two thirds of its water footprint. And it imports it from Africa, Latin America and from places which don't have any water," she noted. 

Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, notes that "modes of food consumption in rich countries have huge negative externalities that are not accounted in the price of food". For example, the rapid expansion of pasture for livestock is a major cause of deforestation, in particular in the Amazon, further contributing to climate change. 

A report prepared by the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management calls for a significant shift in diets away from animal-based proteins towards more vegetable-based foods in order to dramatically reduce pressures on the environment. Ernst von Weizsaecker, co-chair of the panel, said that "rising affluence is triggering a shift in diets towards meat and dairy products - livestock now consumes much of the world's crops and by inference a great deal of freshwater, fertilisers and pesticides linked with that crop production in the first place".

Paul Polman, chief executive officer of Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many brands in the food and beverage sector, believes that decoupling business growth from environmental impact is possible and even cheaper than continuing business as usual.

Unilever is currently seeking to halve the environmental footprint of its products and source 100% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020 – together with a parallel aim of doubling its business during the same period.

The company is seeking to integrate more smallholder farmers into its supply chain and help them improve their agricultural practices, as sustainable farming – if done well – actually uses less fertiliser, doesn't involve deforestation and "often actually gives you a higher yield as well," Polman said.

On a recent visit to the United States, the Prince of Wales called for an overhaul of food production, championing organic and sustainable techniques. He drew particular attention to the depletion of water reserves due to vast amounts of irrigation in industrialised food production, suggesting that America's appetite for beef is jeopardising the world's water supply.

"For every pound of beef produced in the industrial system, it takes two thousand gallons of water. That is a lot of water and there is plenty of evidence that the Earth cannot keep up with the demand," the Prince told the Future of Food conference at Georgetown University. According to the UN, the average American eats more than 41kg of beef a year, which is four times the international average.

Derk Kuiper from the Water Footprint Network believes that water footprinting can actually play a role as an indicator in the debate on the pricing of ecological services, as well as trade and investment policies.

Kuiper also believes that better information about water usage will lead to more efficient agricultural production, as the data can help pinpoint where to grow high-water demand crops that are essential to Europe's food security. For example, producing crops like wheat and rice, which demand a substantial amount of water, is not efficient in Spain, where temperatures are higher and the sun is brighter. This, he said, is "quite a waste of water because you have other regions in Europe that would be much better suited for the production of foodstuffs".

FoodDrinkEurope, a trade group representing the European food and drink industry, stresses that its member companies seek to "continuously improve the environmental performance of their products and processes, while meeting consumers' needs for food safety, nutrition, health, convenience, lifestyle and product choice".

The sector also aims to make a better use of its raw materials of agricultural origin. "Food and drink manufacturers are increasingly acting as bio-refineries, in which agricultural crops are separated into a long series of products, including co-products and by-products, comprising not only food but also feed, fertilisers, cosmetics, bio-fuels and others," the group said.

The European Community of Consumer Cooperatives (EuroCoop) considers that the EU institutions must strive to do their best to challenge and change current consumption and production patterns, starting with effective implementation of the different plans contained in the Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial Policy (SCP/SIP) Package.

When the Swedish authorities published guidelines for climate-friendly food choices in 2009, Inger Andersson, director-general of the Swedish National Food Administration, said that "consumers make important environmental choices when they are food-shopping, so they need a sound basis on which to make their decisions. Food production accounts for roughly a quarter of Swedish consumers' climate-impacting emissions, and also contributes to other harmful environmental effects, for example through the use of pesticides".

Pekka Pesonen, secretary-general of the European farmer and agri-cooperative lobby Copa-Cogeca, suggests that "the price of beef should be higher to correspond to its environmental impact."

"As long as prices go down, we are not going to reach sustainability," he added, describing the need to boost economic growth while maintaining sustainability as "a challenge none of us has solved so far". 

In a debate on meat consumption and climate change, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, was asked whether increased taxation of meat products would be a way to induce changes in behaviour, as is already being done in the transport sector. Pachauri said that "a tax would make a lot of sense," but that one should not wait for such measures to change eating habits.

The European Association for the Co-ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation (ANEC) and the European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC) are calling for intelligent and prudent use of labelling to inform consumers.

They criticise "the wrong assumption of governments and others that labelling and product information alone can help change consumption behaviours".

"Moreover, businesses often consider labelling essential to communicating commitment to environmental standards to consumers. There is thus a continuous rush of businesses, which want to be seen as green, developing their own – often unclear – labels," they said, which are not necessarily tested on consumers for understanding or their usability and often have no coherence or comparability with existing labels.

The organisations express concern about "the development of environmental labels by businesses alone," highlighting the label developed by the Carbon Trust and promoted by supermarket giant Tesco in the UK as an example. "They can be only a form of advertising. Environmental labels should be developed under the supervision of governments and in a democratic process," they added.

In the case of food products, ANEC and BEUC believe that product carbon footprinting (PCF) is "a good basis for the development of general recommendations addressed to consumers taking into account climate change issues such 'eat regional and seasonal food' and 'eat less meat', but needs not be communicated as PCF," since communicating CO2 figures on consumer products is meaningless and not helpful for consumers.

Timeline

• 2000: Commission guidelines for making and assessing environmental claims.
• 2003: Commission study on environmental impacts of various product groups.
• 2005: Launch of European Platform on Life-Cycle Assessment.
• 2005: European Environment Agency (EEA) presents National Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts.
• Feb. 2009: Launch of European Food Sustainable Consumption and Production Round Table.
• April 2009: European Environment Agency (EEA) study on The water we eat.
• July 2010: European Food SCP Round Table adopts 10 guiding principles.
• Autumn 2011: Commission to adopt roadmap to resource-efficient Europe.
• Second half 2011: Results of feasibility study on EU Ecolabel criteria for food and feed products expected.
• ​2013: Parliament declares 2013 the European Year Against Food Waste

External Links

European Union

• Commission press release:Environment: Calls for taxation regimes to reflect impacts on the environment (2 June 2010) [FR] [FR] [DE]
• Joint Research Centre:Life Cycle Thinking
• Joint Research Centre:ILCD Handbook (12 March 2010)
• Commission press release: Sustainable Consumption and Production: Commission launches handbook on how to assess the environmental impact of products(12 March 2010) [FR] [FR] [DE]
• European Environment Agency:The water we eat(17 April 2009)
• Joint Research Centre: Environmental Impacts of Diet Changes in the EU(June 2009)
• Commission:Identifying products with the greatest potential for environmental improvement
• Commission:Agriculture and climate change
• Eurobarometer:Europeans’ attitudes towards the issue of sustainable consumption and production(April 2009)
• Joint Research CentreEnvironmental Improvement Potentials of Meat and Dairy Products(August 2008)
• Commission:Potential of the Ecological Footprint for monitoring environmental impacts from natural resource use(May 2008) [Summary]
• Commission:Feature on water: Waste not, want not [FR] [FR] [DE]
• Joint research Centre:Environmental Impact of Products (EIPRO) - Analysis of the life cycle environmental impacts related to the final consumption of the EU-25(July 2007)
• European Environment Agency (EEA): The Ecological Footprint: A resource accounting framework for measuring human demand on the biosphere(November 2005)
• Commission:EU Ecolabel for food and feed products - feasibility study
• Commission:Guidelines for Making and Assessing Environmental Claims(December 2000)

International Organisations

• UN Food and Agriculture Organization of (FAO):Forest insects as food: humans bite back(2010)
• UN Food and Agriculture Organization of (FAO): Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Dairy Sector - A Life Cycle Assessment(2010)
• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): Priority Products & Materials(June 2010)
• Olivier De Schutter UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food:The meatification of diets and global food security(3 December 2009)
• UN Food and Agriculture Organization of (FAO): Edible insects and the environment [FR]
• UN Food and Agriculture Organization of (FAO): Livestock's long shadow - environmental issues and options (2006)

Governments

• PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency:Meat, dairy and fish: options for changes in production and consumption(28 April 2011) [Report]
• Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL):The protein puzzle - The consumption and production of meat, dairy and fish in the European Union(28 April 2011)
• Nordic Council of Ministers:The environmental impact of the consumption of sweets, crisps and soft drinks(9 February 2011)
• UK - Directgov:Food and drink: greener choices
• Sweden - National food administration (NFA): Sweden withdraws proposal for eco-smart food choices(12 November 2010)
• Sweden - National food administration (NFA):NFA environmentally smart food choices(2009)

Business & Industry

• Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform
• Swedish food companies:Climate certification for food - A Swedish initiative for climate mitigation
• Unilever:Our water footprint
• Unilever: Our greenhouse gas footprint
• Unilever:Sustainable Living Plan(2010)
• Swedish food companies:Climate certification for food
• European Food Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) roundtable [Environmental assessment methodology - Working Group 1]
• Coca-Cola Company:Our water footprint
• SABMiller: Water footprinting report
• Dairy Sustainability
• The Sustainability Consortium:Food, Beverage, and Agriculture Working Group

Industry federations and trade unions

• European Dairy Association (EDA):The role of the EU dairy industry in the worldwide sustainability challenge(4 June 2009)
• FoodDrinkEurope:CIAA Environment Review (2005)
• Eurocommerce:Retailers' Environmental Action Programme (REAP)
• FoodDrinkEurope:Managing Environmental Sustainability in the European Food & Drink Industries
• FoodDrinkEurope:The Food & Drink Life Cycle

NGOs and Think-Tanks

• Food & Water Europe:De-Coding Seafood Eco-Labels: How the European Commission Can Help Consumers Access Sustainable Seafood(4 May 2011) [Report]
• Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and WWF:The water and carbon footprint of household food and drink waste in the UK(March 2011)
• European Association for the Co-ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation (ANEC)/European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC):ANEC/BEUC Preliminary thoughts in view of the revision of the EU Action Plan on Sustainable Consumption & Production(February 2011)
• Food & Water Europe:De-Coding Seafood Eco-Labels: Why We Need Public Standards(7 December 2010) [Report]
• Global Footprint Network
• Global Footprint Network:Personal Footprint
• European Association for the Co-ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation (ANEC): New ANEC study Requirements on Consumer Information about Product Carbon Footprint(June 2010)

Think tanks & Academia

• Worldwatch Institute:Worldwatch Report: Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use
• Worldwatch Institute - World Watch Magazine (November/December 2009): Livestock and Climate Change(22 October 2009)
• Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology:Climate impact of light and dark chocolate(August 2009)
• Carnegie Mellon University:Carnegie Mellon Researchers Report Dietary Choice Has Greater Impact on Climate Change Than Food Miles(April 2008)

Other

• Food Footprint: What it means
• Water Footprint Network:The water footprint assessment manual: Setting the global standard(2011)
• Food Carbon Footprint Calculator (FCFC)
• One Green Planet: Eco-Eating: Going Green Begins With What’s On Your Plate(18 April 2011)