Integrating Life Cycle and Impact Assessments to Map Food's Cumulative Environmental Footprint

Caitlin D Kuempel,Melanie Frazier,Kirsty L Nash,Nis Sand Jacobsen,David R Williams,Julia L Blanchard,Richard S Cottrell,Peter B Mcintyre,Daniel Moran,Lex Bouwman,Halley E Froehlich,Jessica A Gephart,Marc Metian,Johannes Többen,Benjamin S Halpern

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2020.06.014

Abstract

Feeding a growing, increasingly affluent population while limiting environmental pressures of food production is a central challenge for society. Understanding the location and magnitude of food production is key to addressing this challenge because pressures vary substantially across food production types. Applying data and models from life cycle assessment with the methodologies for mapping cumulative environmental impacts of human activities (hereafter cumulative impact mapping) provides a powerful approach to spatially map the cumulative environmental pressure of food production in a way that is consistent and comprehensive across food types. However, these methodologies have yet to be combined. By synthesizing life cycle assessment and cumulative impact mapping methodologies, we provide guidance for comprehensively and cumulatively mapping the environmental pressures (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, spatial occupancy, and freshwater use) associated with food production systems. This spatial approach enables quantification of current and potential future environmental pressures, which is needed for decision makers to create more sustainable food policies and practices.

Highlights

The global food system imposes significant pressure on our environment
We demonstrate how to account for feed and on-farm environmental pressures by using greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from beef and salmon aquaculture
As the human population races toward 10 billion people, the need to rapidly develop effective policies to guide sustainable food production is critical

Summary

Introduction

The global food system imposes significant pressure on our environment. These pressures are generated by the inputs, processes, and outputs required to produce different food types and are associated with every stage of production, processing, distribution, consumption, and wastage.[1]. The feed pressures become clear when exploring the differences of mapping pressures to where they are incurred versus the final animal production site (Box 2, figure panel A versus B and D versus E) In another example, salmon aquaculture is known to have relatively low environmental pressures per unit production compared with that of beef,[1,24] when assessed spatially, salmon aquaculture has higher total GHG and freshwater withdrawal per grid cell. Substantive improvements can be iteratively made over time to achieve a more comprehensive assessment of uncertainty

Conclusions

Findings

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES