Food Consumption Choices and Climate Change

This report presents the results from an ENTWINED ( www.entwined.se ) analysis of the climate impact associated with food consumption choices, with special focus on locally produced food. The purpose of the analysis was to analyze and compare the relative climate benefits of locally grown food with other consumption choices available to food consumers, and to propose policies that would enable a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from food consumption. The results showed inter alia that a vegetarian and seasonally adjusted grocery bag had the lowest emissions of GHG of the bags studied. For non-vegetarian bags, the amount of beef in the bag was very influential for the level of GHG emissions. The impact of locally grown food choices was relatively small, and in one case of the sensitivity analysis negligible. Concluding results show that from a climate perspective it is more important to focus on what we eat rather than whether it is locally grown, has been transported a long distance, or how the food item was produced.