Climate impact reduction potential of agroecology: a case study of traditional Andalusian recipes (Spain)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Scaling up agroecology through the implementation of local (Scenario 1, S1), seasonal (S2), organic (S3), and efficiently cooked (S4) diets based on local gastronomy can play an important role in reducing the climate and energy impacts of food. The carbon and energy footprints (CF and EF) of 10 conventionally cooked traditional recipes representative of the Mediterranean diet (S0 = food from industrial and globalized agriculture, non-seasonally consumed) were estimated. The CF of the recipes was estimated to be between 0.56 and 13.4 kg CO2 eq/kg. Our results show that, depending on the drivers or scenarios (S1, S2, S3, S4) and the recipes, significant reductions in CF and EF are indeed achieved, which can be of up to 57% in CF when considering the reduction potential of these four drivers in an agroecological transition process (S5).