Elin Röös

Challenges of carbon labelling of food products: a consumer research perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to critically reflect on the effects that carbon labelling of food products will have on consumer purchasing behaviour and on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarises the findings from research on organic food‐purchasing behaviour and discusses how this can be applied to the new field of carbon labelling of food. Two consumer behaviour studies specifically examining carbon labelling are also reviewed.Findings – Although consumers have positive attitudes to preserving the environment, sales of organic products are low for several reasons: perceived high price, strong habits governing food purchases, perceived low availability, lack of marketing and information, lack of trust in the labelling system, and low perceived customer effectiveness. All these obstacles apply to the purchase of carbon labelled products and several are even greater for carbon‐labelled products, since these do not bring any personal benefits to the...

EU sustainability criteria for biofuels: uncertainties in GHG emissions from cultivation

Background: Cultivation of raw material represents a large proportion of biofuels´ GHG emissions. The EU renewable energy directive 2009/28/EC specifies a GHG emission default value for cultivation of biofuel raw material (23 g CO2-e/MJ ethanol for wheat). The aim of this study was to quantify the uncertainty in GHG emissions for wheat cultivation in Sweden, considering uncertainty and variability in data at farm level. Results: Two levels of data collection at farm level were analyzed; simple (only yield and amount of N) and advanced (also including amounts and types of energy). The 2.5–97.5 percentile uncertainty for Swedish winter wheat was 20–27 g CO2-e/MJ, which can be considered large in the context of the Directive’s threshold of 23 g (to two significant figures). Conclusion: It is concluded that quantifying GHG emissions in order to regulate biofuels is a difficult task, especially emissions from cultivation, since these are biological systems with large variability.

Carbon Footprint of Food Products

The food system has been identified as one of the major contributors to climate change. The main sources of greenhouse gas emissions are nitrous oxide (N2O) from soils, methane (CH4) from enteric fermentation in animals, and carbon dioxide (CO2) from land use change, such as deforestation. Emissions also arise from manure management, mineral fertilizer production, rice cultivation, and energy use on farms and from post-farm activities such as processing, packaging, storage, distribution, and waste management. With increasing awareness of climate change, calculating the carbon footprint (CF) of food products has become increasingly popular among researchers and companies wanting to determine the impact of their products on global warming and/or to communicate the CF of their products to consumers. This chapter discusses issues that are especially relevant when calculating the CF of food products, such as the choice of functional unit, which is challenging owing to the multifunctionality of food. Other issues concern how to include emissions arising from indirect land use change and removal of CO2 from the atmosphere by carbon sequestration in soils into CF calculations. Causes of the large uncertainties associated with calculating the CF of food products and ways to handle this uncertainty are also discussed and examples of uses and results of CF of food products are presented. Despite the large uncertainties, it is clear that the differences in CF between different types of food products are very large. In general, the CF of livestock-based products are much larger than those of plant-based products. CF information on food products may be useful in business-to-business communication, for professionals in the retail sector and in public procurement.

Risks and opportunities of increasing yields in organic farming: a review

Current organic agriculture performs well in several sustainability domains, like animal welfare, farm profitability and low pesticide use, but yields are commonly lower than in conventional farming. There is now a re-vitalized interest in increasing yields in organic agriculture to provide more organic food for a growing, more affluent population and reduce negative impacts per unit produced. However, past yield increases have been accompanied by several negative side-effects. Here, we review risks and opportunities related to a broad range of sustainability domains associated with increasing yields in organic agriculture in the Northern European context. We identify increased N input, weed, disease and pest control, improved livestock feeding, breeding for higher yields and reduced losses as the main measures for yield increases. We review the implications of their implementation for biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient losses, soil fertility, animal health and welfare, human nutrition and health and farm profitability. Our findings from this first-of-its-kind integrated analysis reveal which strategies for increasing yields are unlikely to produce negative side-effects and therefore should be a high priority, and which strategies need to be implemented with great attention to trade-offs. For example, increased N inputs in cropping carry many risks and few opportunities, whereas there are many risk-free opportunities for improved pest control through the management of ecosystem services. For most yield increasing strategies, both risks and opportunities arise, and the actual effect depends on management including active mitigation of side-effects. Our review shows that, to be a driving force for increased food system sustainability, organic agriculture may need to reconsider certain fundamental principles. Novel plant nutrient sources, including increased nutrient recycling in society, and in some cases mineral nitrogen fertilisers from renewable sources, and truly alternative animal production systems may need to be developed and accepted.

Future Nordic Diets

Farming is the foundation of our food system. While the prerequisite for farming is a clean environment and a diverse nature, agriculture is currently the cause of major environmental problems, inc ...

Evaluating Consumer Understanding of the Swedish Meat Guide—A Multi-layered Environmental Information Tool Communicating Trade-offs When Choosing Food

ABSTRACT To facilitate the choice of more sustainable animal-based products in the diet, a Swedish meat guide providing complex, multi-layered environmental information to non-experts has been developed. This study evaluated reception of this guide by consumers. In five focus groups, participants (“interested consumers”) carried out a joint environmental and animal welfare ranking assignment to test understanding and use of the guide. The type and detail of indicators (e.g. carbon footprint) in the meat guide suited the audience. The guide stimulated discussion on ethical issues and quality aspects of meat, revealed perceived obstacles to reducing meat consumption and provided an understanding that any food product chosen comes with trade-offs.

Knowledge synthesis and dissemination in organic research in Sweden: integrating ethics

EPOK (Centre for Organic Food and Farming) at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) works with knowledge synthesis, communication and research initiation in the field of organic farming. In order to facilitate the networking, researchers at departments of different scientific fields are associated to EPOK on a part-time basis. An important aspect of the knowledge transfer is to integrate the basic ethical concepts of health, ecology, fairness and care of organic farming according to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements into the practical work. In the current EPOK activities the aim is to incorporate the principle of health in the work about animal nutrition and husbandry and in the synthesis work on nutritional aspects of organic food. The ecological principle is implemented in the work concerning cropping systems and interactions with soil fertility, the local flora and fauna and surrounding environment. The fairness principle influence the work on life cycle analysis of organic farming and its effect on climate change, as well as the efforts to give the animals possibility to natural behaviour. The care principle stresses the fact that the current agricultural practises must be developed and refined so that they support ecosystem services that promotes resilient production systems, which is exemplified by the work with biological crop protection methods. Our experience is that this approach to disseminating science to the society is fruitful. Through synthesizing research and experiences by system analysis of the food chain and its environmental impact the ethical principles can be emphasized in a scientific way. Other important activities are to organize workshops and to promote activities that increase the scientific knowledge relevant to organic farming. The approach of EPOK emphasizes the importance of communication through printed leaflets and reports, as well as, electronic newsletters and messages in social media. Furthermore, forums and platforms are created for an enhanced public dialogue.