Dataset Information

Biodiversity impacts due to food consumption in Europe.

ABSTRACT: Food security and biodiversity conservation are closely interconnected challenges to be addressed to achieve a sustainable food system on a global scale. Due to the complex nature of food production and consumption system, quantifying the impacts of food supply chains on biodiversity is challenging. Life cycle assessment (LCA) allows for systematically addressing environmental impacts along supply chains, representing a reference methodology that can be applied for assessing food systems. In the present study, 32 representative food products of consumption in the European Union (EU) were selected and their environmental impacts calculated through a process-based LCA. The potential contribution of EU food consumption to the current biodiversity decline has been evaluated adopting both midpoint and endpoint indicators. A comparison of the impact drivers was performed. Meat products, the underpinning land use for agricultural purposes, and climate change represent the main hotspots of impacts on biodiversity. Notwithstanding several drivers of biodiversity loss can be accounted for with LCA, the evidence of the increasing biodiversity decline on both a European and a global scale indicates that the assessment system should be further expanded, especially for what concerns refining impact categories such as ecotoxicity, and including resource overexploitation, and impact due to invasive species. This study illustrates: how far the current LCA based impact assessment framework may help to address the drivers of biodiversity loss; which are the main uncertainties associated to results stemming from the application of different endpoint methods; which aspects need to be elaborated further to ensure a comprehensive assessment of biodiversity impacts due to food production and consumption.

SUBMITTER: Crenna E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6559135 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Biodiversity impacts due to food consumption in Europe.

Crenna E E Sinkko T T Sala S S

Journal of cleaner production 20190801

Food security and biodiversity conservation are closely interconnected challenges to be addressed to achieve a sustainable food system on a global scale. Due to the complex nature of food production and consumption system, quantifying the impacts of food supply chains on biodiversity is challenging. Life cycle assessment (LCA) allows for systematically addressing environmental impacts along supply chains, representing a reference methodology that can be applied for assessing food systems. In the ...[more]

PMID: 31379419

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Project description:The assessment of food biodiversity has gained importance in nutrition due to the positive association between the diversity of foods consumed and the quality of diets. To date, however, we do not know systematically how food consumption studies address food biodiversity. Our objective with this paper was to characterize how food consumption studies address biodiverse foods, both in terms of (i) new methods capable of overcoming the limitations of existing methods, and (ii) indicators capable of measuring the contribution of biodiversity to nutrition. We conducted a systematic review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), using four databases: Web of Science, Medline/PubMed (via National Library of Medicine), Scopus, and Google Scholar. We selected papers focused on the consumption of biodiverse foods without time constraints. In addition, we assessed the methodological quality of the studies we selected. We reviewed a total of 22 studies, and summarized the methods and indicators most used. We found that some researchers used biodiversity mapping strategies based on ethnographic approaches before the dietary assessment. Regarding dietary assessment tools, retrospective direct methods were the most used by researchers. We list 23 indicators used by the authors, among them the Dietary Species Richness (DSR), used in 18% of the studies. Studies that used biodiversity mapping strategies based on ethnographic approaches before the dietary assessment portrayed the local availability of biodiverse foods more consistently, i.e., presented lists with local edible species satisfactorily identified. We believe researchers in the future can avoid many of the limitations of current methods by ensuring that teams are interprofessional. We emphasize that most of the indicators we summarized are not sensitive enough to biodiversity since they do not measure edible resources at the species level. In this sense, the DSR is promising, because it fills information gaps, especially in the case of wild or neglected species.

Project description:The environmental impacts generated by household consumption are generally calculated through footprints, allocating the supply-chain impacts to the final consumers. This study compares the result of the Consumer Footprint indicator, aimed at assessing the impacts of household consumption in Europe, calculated with the two standard approaches usually implemented for footprint calculations: (i) a bottom-up approach, based on process-Life cycle assessment of a set of products and services representing household consumption, and (ii) a top-down approach, based on environmentally extended input-output tables (EXIOBASE 3). Environmental impacts are calculated considering 14 environmental impact categories out of the 16 included in the EF2017 impact assessment method. Both footprints show similar total values regarding climate change, freshwater eutrophication and fossil resource use, but in the meantime very large differences (more than a factor 2) regarding particulate matter, photochemical ozone formation, land use and mineral resource use. The exclusion of services in the bottom-up approach can explain only to some extent these differences. However, the two approaches converge in identifying food as the main driver of impact in most of the impact categories considered (with a generally lower contribution in top-down compared to bottom-up). Housing and mobility are relevant as well for some impact categories (e.g. particulate matter and fossil resource depletion). Some substances are identified as hotspot by both approaches, e.g. the emission of NH3 to air (for acidification and terrestrial eutrophication), of NOx to air (for acidification, marine and terrestrial eutrophication, and, to some extent, photochemical ozone formation), of P to water and to soil (for freshwater eutrophication) and of fossil CO2 to air (for climate change). Significant differences at the inventory side are key drivers for the differences in total impacts. These include: (i) differences in the intensity of emissions, (ii) differences in the coverage of elementary flows, (iii) differences in the level of detail relative to elementary flows. Overall, the key converging results from both approaches (in particular regarding most contributing areas of consumption and substances) can be considered as a robust basis to support the definition of policies aimed at reducing the environmental footprint of household consumption in Europe.

Project description:Background:Studies investigating diet-related environmental impacts have rarely considered the production method of the foods consumed. The objective of the present study, based on the NutriNet-Santé cohort, was to investigate the relationship between a provegetarian score and diet-related environmental impacts. We also evaluated potential effect modifications on the association between a provegetarian score and the environmental impacts of organic food consumption. Methods:Food intake and organic food consumption ratios were obtained from 34,442 French adults using a food frequency questionnaire, which included information on organic food consumption for each group. To characterize the overall structure of the diets, a provegetarian score was used to identify preferences for plant-based products as opposed to animal-based products. Moreover, three environmental indicators were used to assess diet-related environmental impacts: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, cumulative energy demand (CED), and land occupation. Environmental impacts were assessed using production life cycle assessment (LCA) at the farm level. Associations between provegetarian score quintiles, the level of organic food consumption, and environmental indicators were analyzed using ANCOVAs adjusted for energy, sex, and age. Results:Participants with diets rich in plant-based foods (fifth quintile) were more likely to be older urban dwellers, to hold a higher degree in education, and to be characterized by an overall healthier lifestyle and diet. A higher provegetarian score was associated with lower environmental impacts (GHG emissionsQ5vsQ1?=?838/1,664?kg CO2eq/year, -49.6%, P?<?0.0001; CEDQ5vsQ1?=?4,853/6,775?MJ/year, -26.9%, P?<?0.0001; land occupationQ5vsQ1?=?2,420/4,138?m2/year, -41.5%, P?<?0.0001). Organic food consumption was also an important modulator of the relationship between provegetarian dietary patterns and environmental impacts but only among participants with diets rich in plant-based products. Conclusion:Future field studies should endeavor to integrate all the components of a sustainable diet, i.e., both diet composition and production methods.

Dataset Information

Biodiversity impacts due to food consumption in Europe.

Publications

Biodiversity impacts due to food consumption in Europe.

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