LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 4B: DIET 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
3.3. Environmental impact assessment
Table 13 displays the global annual GHG emissions of each kind of consumer. At first glance, one can
see that despite organic consumers purchase more products (in weight), their carbon footprint is very close,
but slightly inferior, to the conventional consumers’ one. Given the uncertainty of both activity data and
emissions factors, the lower carbon footprint of the organic consumer cannot be considered significant.
However, it can be propounded that organic consumption basket composition counteracts the higher mass
purchased. If the mass were the same as for the conventional consumer, the carbon footprint would be 5.5%
lower.
Table 13. Annual purchases and GHG emissions per capita
Consumers groups
Food basket weight Global Warming Potential
(nb of organic products purchased) (kg/capita/year)
(kg. CO2 eq.)
Group 1 - French consumer average 505 1179
Group 2 - Conventional consumer 496 1173
Group 5 - Organic consumer 524 1149
When considering the impact repartition according to food products categories, we can notice that for
most categories, and especially Meat, fish and eggs, Ready-made meals, Fruits and vegetables and Beverages,
trends are very correlated to the ones observed on the basket composition (i.e. less Meat, fish and eggs
in group 5 basket results in a lower impact). Indeed, mass variation has more effect than the difference between
organic and conventional carbon footprints, the latter being often little and not always favouring one
or the other farming practices type.
Regarding the organic consumer, the higher carbon footprints of organic products are counterbalanced by
the composition of the food basket (i.e. more fruits and vegetables, less beverages, meat and dairy products
in comparison to the average consumer). Hence, the latter emerges as a major lever to reduce the carbon
footprint of the diet.
The comparison of the mass and impact profiles of each consumer highlights that these two aspects are
not correlated, as illustrated in Figure 3. Indeed, some categories are highly consumed but lead to minor contributions
to global GHG emissions (e.g. beverages, fruits and vegetables), others carry significant part of the
impact even if they are consumed in lower quantities (e.g. Meat, fish and eggs, Dairy products). This comes
from the fact that carbon footprints vary greatly from one food category to another.
Dairy products
Ready-made
meals
Meat, fish and
eggs
Fruits and
vegetables
Baby food
Starchy foods,
cereals, semolina
Beverages
Bakery wares
Coffee, tea,
chocolate drinks
Salt, spices, soups,
sauces, salads
Figure 3. Mass and impact repartition for the French average consumer (1 graduation – 5%)
Focusing on specific categories, we have noticed that although carbon footprints are higher for organic
meat and dairy individual products, the average footprints of the respective categories are lower for this
386
Mass
Impact