Highlights A systematized food waste accounting at macro scale level was developed for Europe. The accounting follows Mass Flow Analysis concepts, ensuring closed mass balance. Disaggregated values per food supply chain stages and per food groups are presented. Hotspots and food groups with higher share of food waste were identified. The stage contributing the most to food waste varies depending on the food group.

According to national studies conducted in EU countries, fresh fruit and vegetables contribute to almost 50% of the food waste generated by households. This study presents an estimation of this waste flow, differentiating between unavoidable and avoidable waste. The calculation of these two flows serves different purposes. The first (21.1 kg per person per year) provides a measure of the amount of household waste intrinsically linked to the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, and which would still be generated even in a zero-avoidable waste future scenario. The second (14.2 kg per person per year) is a quantity that could be reduced/minimised by applying targeted prevention strategies. The unavoidable waste was assessed at product level, by considering the inedible fraction and the purchased amounts of the fifty-one most consumed fruits and vegetables in Europe. The avoidable waste was estimated at commodity group level, based on the results of national studies conducted in six EU member states. Significant differences in the amounts of avoidable and unavoidable waste generated were found across countries, due to different levels of wasteful behaviours (linked to cultural and economic factors) and different consumption patterns (influencing the amount of unavoidable waste generated). The results of this study have implications for policies both on the prevention and the management of household food waste.

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Abstract:The challenge of feeding nine billion people by 2050, in a context of constrained resources and growing environmental pressures posed by current food production methods on one side, and changing lifestyles and consequent shifts in dietary patterns on the other, exacerbated by the effects of climate change, has been defined as one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. The first step to achieve food security is to find a balance between the growing demand for food, and the limited production capacity. In order to do this three main pathways have been identified: employing sustainable production methods in agriculture, changing diets, and reducing waste in all stages of the food chain. The application of an energy, water and food nexus (EWFN) approach, which takes into account the interactions and connections between these three resources, and the synergies and trade-offs that arise from the way they are managed, is a prerequisite for the correct application of these pathways. This work discusses how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) might be applicable for creating the evidence-base to foster such desired shifts in food production and consumption patterns.

Purpose This paper describes the research that underpins the development of EATS (the Environmental Assessment Tool for School meals), a life cycle-based decision support tool for local authorities and their contractors responsible for providing catering services to schools. The purpose of this tool is to quantify the carbon footprint (CF) and water footprint (WF) of the meals served in order to identify hotspot meals and ingredients, and suggest simple, yet transformative, reduction measures. A case study is used to test the tool, comparing the impacts of 34 school meal recipes. Methods The tool utilises secondary data to calculate values of CF and WF for a school meal from cradle to plate. This includes three phases: (1) food production, (2) transport of each ingredient to a generic school kitchen in the UK, and (3) meal preparation. Considerations for waste along the supply chain are included. After testing the tool against a set of nutritionally compliant meals, a sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the influence of the origin and seasonality of the ingredients, transport mode and cooking appliances used on the final results. Results and discussionThe results of the case study show the predominance of the production phase in the overall carbon footprint and that there is a strong tendency towards lower impacts for meat-free meals; however, this is not always the case, for instance some of the chicken-based meals present lower impacts than vegetarian meals rich in dairy ingredients. The sensitivity analysis performed on one of the meals shows that the highest value of CF is obtained when the horticultural products are out of season and produced in heated greenhouses, whilst the highest value of WF is obtained when the origin of the ingredients is unknown and the global average values of WF are used in the analysis; this defines a crucial data need if accurate analyses are to be uniformly possible. Conclusions This article focuses on the potential offered by the public food sector for a transformative reduction in the environmental impact of urban food consumption. The results presented prove that careful menu planning and procurement choices can considerably reduce the overall environmental impact of the service provided without compromising quality or variety. This research thus supports those responsible for making these decisions via a user-friendly tool based on robust scientific evidence.

Impacts associated with land use are increasingly recognized as important aspects to consider when conducting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Across the existing models accounting for land use activities in life cycle impact assessment, a balance is yet to be found between complexity and comprehensiveness on one hand, and applicability on the other hand. This work builds on the LANd use indicator value CAlculation (LANCA ® ) model, assessing the impacts of land use activities on five soil properties, and aims at developing an aggregated index to improve its applicability. First a statistical analysis is conducted, leading to the shortlisting of the four most significant soil quality indicators. Then two options for aggregating the selected indicators are presented: the soil quality index (SQI), based on linear aggregation, and the normalisation–based soil quality index (NSQI), where the aggregation process involves normalisation integrated into the characterisation step. Country-specific and global average characterisation factors (CFs) are calculated for 57 land use types considering both land occupation and land transformation interventions with the two suggested approaches. The two indices present similar ranking of land use types but the relative contribution of the separate indicators to the aggregated index varies according to the approach adopted. The differences between the aggregation approaches suggested are discussed, together with the limitations related to both the LANCA ® model and the aggregation approaches. This work represents a first step towards the widespread application of a comprehensive and robust land use model at midpoint level in LCA. Finally, a number of recommendations for the future development of the LANCA ® model and of the related soil quality models are provided.

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