Citation:
Adrian G. Williams, Eric Audsley, Julia C Chatterton, Donal Murphy-Bokern, Matthew Brander, Greenhouse gas emissions from UK food and drink
consumption by systems LCA: current and possible
futures, in LCA-Food 2010: VII International conference on Life Cycle Assessment in the agri-food sector, 22 to 24 September, Bari, Italy, pp. 363-368.
Abstract:
This work determined the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from
the UK food system by 70% from a 2005 baseline. A food consumption-orientated
inventory was produced including primary agricultural production, food
processing, distribution, preparation and disposal. Land use change (LUC) used a
top-down approach. The inventory used many sources of data ranging from LCA
studies to national level reporting of energy use by sectors of the economy and
household surveys. The inventory was created with systems models to compare
scenarios for emission reduction. The inventory for the baseline was 250MtCO2e
including 100MtCO2e from LUC. Emissions without LUC from the UK food consumption
system are about 20% of the current total consumption emissions. Several
measures to reduce emissions were investigated, including dietary change,
technical efficiency improvement, reducing waste and using non-fossil energy.
Only a combination of measures achieved the 70% target reduction, but required
major societal changes.
