A Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Household Food Choices

Boehm, Rebecca; Wilde, Parke; Ploeg, Michele Ver; Costello, Christine; Cash, Sean B.

doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.05.004

Cited by 63 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Several modelling frameworks aiming to quantify the environmental consequences of dietary choices have been presented in the literature. However, we believe that the novel approach to dietary LCA as presented in this study has several advantages compared to most of the earlier methods modelling the environmental sustainability of food [15,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. The current model was specifically developed for use in connection with food survey data, and the systematic approach and flexibility makes its application possible in a range of studies using such datasets, and also provides a tool that can be used in scenario analysis exploring alternative diets.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A practical advantage of the framework developed here is related to the detailed disaggregation of the purchased food items. In previous studies [15,[18][19][20][21][22][23], the environmental impacts of foods (mainly GHGE only) were usually based on "food groups", not on individual products. Relying on such relatively coarse categories can in the worst case led to insufficient or even misleading conclusions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent studies (e.g., [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]), more detailed calculation methods have been applied to estimate the GHGE of actual and hypothetical diets. However, such analyses are still based on rather limited data on the emissions associated with specific food items, and the calculations are often based on rather generalized "food groups".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Sustainable Diets in the UK—Developing a Systematic Framework to Assess the Environmental Impact, Cost and Nutritional Quality of Household Food Purchases

et al. 2019

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Sustainable diets should not only respect the environment but also be healthy and affordable. However, there has been little work to assess whether real diets can encompass all three aspects. The aim of this study was to develop a framework to quantify actual diet records for health, affordability and environmental sustainability and apply this to UK food purchase survey data. We applied a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach to detailed food composition data where purchased food items were disaggregated into their components with traceable environmental impact data. This novel approach is an improvement to earlier studies in which sustainability assessments were based on a limited number of “food groups”, with a potentially high variation of actual food items within each group. Living Costs and Food Survey data for 2012, 2013 and 2014 were mapped into published figures for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE, taking into account processing, transport and cooking) and land use, a diet quality index (DQI) based on dietary guidelines and food cost, all standardised per household member. Households were classified as having a ‘more sustainable’ diet based on GHGE, cost and land use being less than the median and DQI being higher than the median. Only 16.6% of households could be described as more sustainable; this rose to 22% for those in the lowest income quintile. Increasing the DQI criteria to >80% resulted in only 100 households being selected, representing 0.8% of the sample. The framework enabled identification of more sustainable households, providing evidence of how we can move toward better diets in terms of the environment, health, and costs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sustainable Diets in the UK—Developing a Systematic Framework to Assess the Environmental Impact, Cost and Nutritional Quality of Household Food Purchases

et al. 2019

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“…Büchs and Schnepf illustrated that high education is positively related to all areas of emissions, which suggests that increasing the education level alone is unlikely to tackle household carbon emissions [34]. Boehm et al found that white households and those with higher education levels generate more greenhouse gas emissions from food spending compared to non-white and less educated households [35]. In addition, some studies focus on the impact of age on household CO 2 emissions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unveiling Key Drivers of Indirect Carbon Emissions of Chinese Older Households

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2019

Sustainability

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The rapid urbanization and growing population aging have become salient features in China. Understanding their impacts on household emissions is crucial for designing mitigation policies for household carbon emissions. By integrating Chinese older household survey data with an unconditional quantile regression model, this paper examines the heterogeneous impacts of household characteristics on indirect carbon emissions of older Chinese households. There are three main findings: (1) The effects of urbanization on emissions at different quantiles of carbon emissions appear to be inverted U-shaped, which means that the rise of urbanization level increases carbon emissions more at the middle than at the bottom or the top, and helps to alleviate carbon emission inequality, (2) though carbon emissions rise with the increase of income, there is a clear urban-rural divide in the effects of income on carbon emissions, and (3) the rise in the share of well-educated people contributes to the increase in carbon emissions. The higher the degree of education is, the larger the impact is. These findings contribute to understanding the determinants of carbon emissions and are helpful for policymakers to design targeted policies in reducing carbon emissions from the consumption-side.Sustainability 2019, 11, 5740 2 of 17 reduction target. China is the largest emitter of CO 2 in the world, and it has recently laid a strong emphasis on the promotion of domestic consumption and economic growth, which will continuously give rise to the direct and indirect CO 2 emissions from households. Considering that indirect CO 2 emissions are responsible for a major part of the total emissions, the carbon emission reduction target cannot be fulfilled without special attention to the increasing indirect carbon emissions.It is of vital significance to study the determinants of indirect CO 2 emissions of Chinese older households. China is experiencing both rapid urbanization and growing population aging, which have a crucial influence on carbon emissions. In addition to the significant impact of urbanization on resident consumption and carbon emissions, there is evidence that the rapid shrinking of the younger generation and the rapid growth in the older population will put increasing pressure on the environment [9,10]. Meanwhile, the consumption behavior of older people is clearly different from that of other groups, and it is predicted that changes in age structure in the coming decades will affect household consumption patterns and the related carbon emissions in many countries [11].This paper synthesizes three corpus of literature on household energy consumption or carbon emissions. First, some studies focus on approaches to quantify the indirect carbon emissions from household consumption activities. In summary, three kinds of major approaches are widely used in different countries or regions [12], which are the input-output model, the life cycle assessment method, and the consumer lifestyle approach. Based on the input-output model, Yuan et al...

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“…In the latent class analysis, higher household income was significantly associated with the probability of members to latent class two, the class whose members were sensitive to the price levels presented in the choice experiment but no other product attributes. Investigating why higher-income individuals or households had less interest in agricultural GHG mitigation is an important area of future research, especially since higher-income households globally and in the U.S. have higher carbon footprints with respect to food and other consumer activities [62,63]. Another area of further investigation would be in how geographic location influences consumer interest in purchasing more climate friendly foods and beverages, since our results indicate significant differences in willingness to pay for agricultural GHG mitigation across study sites.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Agricultural Emissions Mitigation on the Menu for Tea Drinkers?

et al. 2019

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Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental and social impacts of their purchases. Prior research has assessed willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental and ethical attributes on foods and beverages such as locally grown, fairly traded, and organically produced. However, few studies have examined WTP for agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, especially in the U.S. and to date, no prior study has examined how knowledge or concerns about climate change motivate WTP for climate-friendly products. The objective of this study was to estimate WTP for agricultural GHG mitigation and examine variability in WTP across consumer characteristics, climate change knowledge and risk perception. A sensory-grounded choice experiment and survey assessing climate change knowledge and risk perception was administrated to specialty food and beverage shoppers in the Midwest and Northeastern U.S. Male and lower-income participants, as well as those at the Midwestern study site were willing to pay a higher premium for agricultural GHG mitigation, relative to females, higher income participants, and those in the Northeastern U.S. Knowledge of climate change and level of concerns for the risks it poses were not significantly associated with increased WTP for agricultural GHG mitigation. This suggests that if consumer demand is going to play a role in driving agricultural GHG mitigation, motivations for such purchasing behavior must be more fully understood.

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A Comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Household Food Choices

Cited by 63 publications

References 19 publications

Sustainable Diets in the UK—Developing a Systematic Framework to Assess the Environmental Impact, Cost and Nutritional Quality of Household Food Purchases

Sustainable Diets in the UK—Developing a Systematic Framework to Assess the Environmental Impact, Cost and Nutritional Quality of Household Food Purchases

Unveiling Key Drivers of Indirect Carbon Emissions of Chinese Older Households

Is Agricultural Emissions Mitigation on the Menu for Tea Drinkers?

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