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This work evaluates and discusses the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction potential of agroecological policies implemented in public food procurement for school canteens. Using a life cycle analysis (LCA) methodology (cradle-to-grave approach) and the information gathered from the Red Municipal de Comedores Escolares (Local Network of School Canteens) in the municipality of Ames (A Coruña, Galicia, Spain), the results show how organic production, dietary change (less animal protein), seasonal consumption, and packaging reduction, among other measures, can mitigate the climate impact of school meals. The food policies implemented in Ames have allowed mitigating the GHG emissions of local school canteens by 13.4%. Under realistic conditions, this reduction could rise to 40.6% should the agroecological transformation of the food system continue to advance.

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Wind energy has rapidly developed in the last decades, generating economic impacts at different territorial scales and contributing to rural development. However, few research works have analysed its economic impact at a local scale, especially in rural areas. Galicia is a Spanish region in which 3300 MW of wind energy have been installed in rural municipalities with low levels of socioeconomic activity and important socio-environmental problems. In this sense, the objective of this work is to analyse the local revenues directly derived from wind power activity in relation to changes in the regulatory framework (1995–2017), as well as to quantify those revenues for the year 2017. For this purpose, information has been systematically collected from secondary sources and complemented with 10 years of field and monitoring work on site at the wind farms. This article reveals the relationship between the regulatory framework and the main sources of income associated with wind power generation (conventional and specific taxes, municipal ownership, and other revenues). In 2017, these revenues amounted to 17.8 million euros. This work discusses how the public policies implemented during the analysed time period limited the direct economic impacts of the installation of wind farms on Galician rural municipalities, and consequently hindered rural development.

Through the process of globalization, food has experienced an intense territorial restructuring process. Local agric-food links have weakened at the same time as daily products arrived from distant lands. There is presently a wide international debate on the importance of transport in the configuration of the agric-food system and its contribution in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG). The direct environmental costs of the transport of imported food, that is the ‘external food miles’, have been estimated in kilometer (km), ton (t), ton-kilometer (t-km) and GHG in Spain between 1995 and 2011. The analysis is made by ten food groups including 136 products, with special attention to the most important ones (cereals and animal feed), as well as by means of transport (air, rail, road and water) and from 113 different countries belonging to six geographical areas. Two phases are identified during this period: an expansive phase (1995–2007), in which the t-km of imported food increased from 81.8 to 147.8 million t-km and environmental pressure rose from 3.1 to 5.4 million CO2-eq t, and a recession phase (2007–2011), in which environmental pressure subsided as a consequence of the reduction of imports, even though it still remained above the 1995 level. The article reveals a clear interrelation between amounts, distances and modal distribution when it comes to determining the environmental cost of transporting food imports in the two periods studied. It also reflects on the role of the external food miles in the Spanish agri-food system from a sustainability perspective.