Figure - available from: The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Source publication
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 wate...
Similar publications
Dietary improvement not only benefits human health conditions, but also offers the potential to reduce the human food system's environmental impact. With the world's largest population and people's bourgeoning lifestyle, China's food system is set to impose increasing pressures on the environment. We evaluated the minimum environmental footprints,...
In the past decades, food consumption in China has undergone a rapid increase and a significant structure transition, as a result of population growth and economic development. The food system is increasingly threatening the environment by depleting water resources, deteriorating water bodies, aggravating climate change, degrading ecosystems, etc....
Citations
... Consumerrelated activities include the food consumed in the territory that can be both produced locally or imported, but also other inhabitants' activities such as their transport to supermarkets. Omitting such consumer activities can lead to carbon or other impact leakages by overlooking upstream processes situated outside of the territorial boundaries (Larsen and Hertwich 2009;De Laurentiis et al. 2019). Previous studies demonstrate, for instance, that food imported to urban territories constitutes more than 90% of the cumulative local food system's impact (Lulovicova and Bouissou 2023). ...
Purpose
Reducing the environmental impacts of food systems has become a growing concern for public authorities. This study aims to adapt the territorial LCA framework (T-LCA) to local food system assessment to identify territorial hotspots of a food system in relation to its land use functions. To achieve this goal, the T-LCA must be enhanced by overcoming previously exposed limitations.
Methods
Deriving from the T-LCA framework, the methodology used in this paper assesses all territorial food-producing, processing, and consuming activities. The methodological developments suggest addressing its three principal methodological limitations by (i) using agricultural statistics to estimate the local consumption and thus account for intra-territorial flows, (ii) proposing novel agri-food land use functions related to a local food system, and (iii) developing a simplified framework for sensitivity analysis (SA) through detection of the most uncertain and influential data followed by a once-at-a-time (OAT) approach to improve the uncertainty related to the substantial number of data involved in meso-level LCAs. The methodology is applied to a case study in France using the Environmental Footprint (EF) 3.0 method.
Results and discussion
The results indicate that intra-territorial flow analysis effectively distinguishes between local and imported flows, identifying their primary environmental hotspots. Despite the significant impact of imported flows, export-oriented livestock production emerges as the principal hotspot of the studied food system. Integrating agri-food land use functions into LCA is crucial for linking the activities with higher environmental impact contributions and their territorial functions. This is the case of animal husbandry which is the main environmental hotspot and one of the principal local economic activities. Finally, the sensitivity analysis reveals a low sensitivity of the overall results to the most influential and uncertain parameters.
Conclusions
These findings confirm the interest in further developing territorial LCA methodologies and adapting them to various contexts to determine the principal environmental burdens of local systems and improve territorial land planning. This study also proposes various research perspectives to confirm and enhance the robustness of T-LCA frameworks, including the development of regional life cycle inventories.
... The most used model to assess environmental sustainability in foodservices is the life cycle model, which has been used to determine the impact of catering, mainly public catering linked to the school sector (Batlle-Bayer et al., 2021;Mistretta et al., 2019;Peano et al., 2022). The carbon footprint has been used on its own as an indicator for modeling sustainable menu designs (Ribal et al., 2016;Rossi et al., 2021) or in conjunction with the water footprint (De Laurentiis et al., 2019). Few studies evaluate indicators related to the social and economic aspects of sustainability, and there are only a few models that consider menu acceptability as a variable to be considered Benvenuti and De Santis, 2020). ...
The foodservice sector has grown rapidly due to the increase in meals out of home. Thanks to the enormous number of meals served daily, making changes to reduce the environmental footprint of their menus could have a positive impact on the sustainability of the food system. The objective of this study was to select indicators to evaluate and communicate the sustainability of culinary preparations offered by foodservices. A bibliographic search of indicators was carried out, which were subsequently subjected to validation regarding their relevance by a group of experts. The indicators finally selected, carbon footprint, water footprint, presence of meat and/or animal products, presence of local ingredients and generation of waste in processing, were applied to traditional Chilean recipes and the results were presented to two discussion groups of consumers to evaluate their understanding and usefulness. When these indicators were applied to 10 Chilean recipes, it was found that those containing meat as an ingredient were less sustainable. A group of consumers invited for validation found the way these indicators were communicated understandable and useful. It is expected that the validation of these indicators will be useful for communicating to services and consumers the sustainability of dishes in foodservices.
... They have also been employed to assess the impact of conventional and alternative diets (Batlle-Bayer et al. 2020;Esteve-Llorens et al. 2019;González-García et al. 2018), such as the vegetarian diet (Poore and Nemecek 2018;Westhoek et al. 2014) or diets based on organic food consumption (Batlle-Bayer et al. 2019;Treu et al. 2017). Some studies have also evaluated the environmental benefits associated with the consumption of organic food, the reduction of transportation, etc (de Laurentiis et al. 2019;Simón, Copena, and Pérez-Neira 2022). However, only a few research works have analyzed the environmental impact associated with specific recipe menus (Schmidt-Rivera and Azapagic 2016; Üçtug et al. 2021), especially in school canteens (Peano et al. 2022;Takacs et al. 2022). ...
Scaling up agroecology through the implementation of local (Scenario 1, S1), seasonal (S2), organic (S3), and efficiently cooked (S4) diets based on local gastronomy can play an important role in reducing the climate and energy impacts of food. The carbon and energy footprints (CF and EF) of 10 conventionally cooked traditional recipes representative of the Mediterranean diet (S0 = food from industrial and globalized agriculture, non-seasonally consumed) were estimated. The CF of the recipes was estimated to be between 0.56 and 13.4 kg CO2 eq/kg. Our results show that, depending on the drivers or scenarios (S1, S2, S3, S4) and the recipes, significant reductions in CF and EF are indeed achieved, which can be of up to 57% in CF when considering the reduction potential of these four drivers in an agroecological transition process (S5).
... Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) have been largely employed in such exercises, as they enable the assessment of the impacts across the entire food supply chain, indicating potential priority areas for intervention (Mistretta et al. 2019). Many studies have applied life-cycle approaches to school contexts to quantify the environmental and cost impacts of school meals Batlle-Bayer et al. 2021;Laurentiis et al. 2019;Mistretta et al. 2019). As a further step, several studies have integrated these methodologies with optimisation models, as they offer opportunities to identify the best dietary combinations of foods across a set of options (Eustachio Colombo et al. 2020). ...
... In the present study, food prices refer to the sourcing convention of the ER, with validity from December 2019 to December 2021, suggesting the need for a potential update for future comparisons. In line with other studies the procurement phase has the highest environmental impact, while the preparation phase has the highest cost impact (Laurentiis et al. 2019;García-Herrero et al. 2021). ...
Food consumption patterns are currently at the heart of sustainability debates globally, with many studies calling for decreases in Animal Source Foods (ASF) consumption. This has been increasingly argued for school meal schemes, considering their sheer size and the fact that by targeting young people they have the potential to enable long-term changes in consumption habits. However, the potential and consequences of dietary transitions away from ASF in school catering services are still under investigation. This work analyses the environmental and cost implications of ASF reduction in school canteens, exploring the possible sustainability impacts of menus based on individual ingredients for a set of Italian schools. We use a mixed-method approach that combines optimisation models, life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and stakeholder consultation. The linear programming method is employed here to design four alterative school meal scenarios, starting from the menus currently served (SCB). Scenario 1 (SC1) minimises beef and dairy consumption, scenario 2 (SC2) minimises pig and poultry consumption, scenario 3 (SC3) minimises the consumption of all meat and dairy products, and scenario 4 (SC4) maximises the consumption of pulses. Each scenario is then assessed through a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment approach for key economic (i.e. costs) and environmental impacts (i.e. greenhouse gas emissions). Results suggest that reducing ASF in school food schemes can ensure nutritional quality and at the same time have environmental and economic benefits. The largest benefits accrue when minimising beef and dairy (SC1), leading to a 22% reduction in Global Warming Potential (GWP) and a 1% reduction in cost per meal. The minimisation of pig and poultry products in SC2 increases the GWP by 2% and costs by 3%, while the minimisation of all meat and dairy products reduces GWP by 12% and increases meal cost by 4% (SC3). Finally, by maximising pulses intake, the GWP per meal decreases by 12% and the cost by 1% (SC4). Overall, food procurement has the highest environmental impact and meal preparation the highest economic impact. Further research should investigate the acceptability of such menus and translate the theoretical findings of our model into more practical day-to-day school meal options.
... The Swedish actors and scholars behind the reviewed literature linked organic food primarily to the positive effects of reduced use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers (Paper I, Paper II). The scholars also stated that organic production could prevent soil degradation and eutrophication, improve biodiversity, and reduce GHG emissions (Goggins and Rau, 2016, Cerutti et al., 2016, Laurentiis et al., 2019, Løes and Nölting, 2011, Brunori and Di Iacovo, 2014. Actors in Sweden described how large quantities of organic vegetables were bought to fulfil the political goals of a significant share of the procured volume being organic (Paper II). ...
... Whereas the literature brought up health as a major concern for social sustainability and the importance of purchasing healthy nutritious food to increase human well-being (Smith et al., 2016, Goggins andRau, 2016), the Swedish actors were not overly concerned about diseases but solely stressed the over usage of antibiotics. Also, dietary changes have been appointed the most efficient measure to reduce environmental impacts from the food system in several academic papers that apply LCA, see, e.g., Laurentiis et al. (2019), Berton et al. (2021) and Garnett (2014a) or Martin and Brandão (2017). Despite the evidence and the focus on health by scholars, dietary guidelines are not common or suggested to any larger extent in the reviewed literature on sustainable procurement or by the Swedish actors. ...
Around 30 % of today's anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions originate from
the food sector. Food production is the lead cause of deforestation, biodiversity
loss, depletion of fish stocks, and scarcity of fresh water. The planetary resources
rapidly decrease with a continually growing population demanding resource-intense food, such as dairy and animal protein. The global production of calories
satisfies human needs, but while some suffer from hunger, even more, suffer from
overweight or obesity.
For a food system to be sustainable, it must not negatively impact the three pillars
of sustainability, i.e., economic, environmental, and social. One of the main
challenges for the food system is to reduce the environmental impact to operate
and stay within the planetary boundaries.
Three million public meals are served daily in Sweden. Public procurement has
been recognized as a powerful tool with potential to promote quality and educate
change. Previous research has shown that implementing sustainability criteria in
the procurement document leads to an increase in certified products in
procurements. The National Agency for Public Procurement (NAPP) in Sweden
provides a library with sustainability criteria on different levels and for almost all
commonly bought products. Active work with sustainability and applying
sustainability criteria in procurement can contribute to pupils education health and
a further sustainable food system.
In this thesis, I frame sustainable procurement through a systematic review of
academic literature and interviews with Swedish practitioners who buy or sell food
products through public procurements. Furthermore, I elaborate on the Swedish
actors' experienced ability to influence the procurements, the use of sustainability
criteria, and barriers and opportunities toward a further sustainable food system
using public procurement. The goal is to examine possible ways toward a more
sustainable food system through public procurement.
The results show that both the reviewed literature and the Swedish actors have a
comprehensive take on sustainability and work with all three dimensions. Above
all, the favoured sustainability aspects are predominantly procuring organically
labelled and locally sourced foods. Working with food waste is recognised as
important, but few initiatives are taken within the procurement process to reduce
food waste. Despite a large amount of academic literature on efficiently reducing
environmental impacts from the food system (mainly by dietary changes and waste
reduction). The results show little interest among actors in promoting these specific
public sector actions. The Swedish actors are overall satisfied with the services
and the criteria library provided by the NAPP. A majority of the respondents
contributed to writing and reviewing the criteria, adding to the criteria’s acceptance
and usage within the sector.
There are several initiatives already taken by policymakers, procuring authorities,
and not the least, the market to improve sustainability in the food system.
Nevertheless, actions must be taken at multiple levels simultaneously to address
the scale of our sustainability challenges. This thesis contributes knowledge that
can guide future research toward sustainable food systems, bridge the
stakeholder’s priorities with research where they differ today, and fully use the
potential in public procurements.
... On the one hand, the school meals system shows the highest greenhouse gas emissions compared to other 'food away from home' settings, particularly during the food production phases [111]. On the other hand, meat-free school meals have shown lower environmental impacts during the same life-cycle assessment phase [112]. Taken as a whole, these dietary shifts may have significant environmental benefits, especially if implemented within the school-meals system, where around 370 million children receive a school meal a day worldwide [22]. ...
Current food systems face immediate and complex challenges in feeding a growing global population. It is necessary to mitigate the environmental impact of food systems while ensuring food security across the globe. Drawing on the example of recent multi-sectoral approaches which focus on the interconnections between public health and the environment, this work offers a narrative review and broader conceptual framework advancing two propositions. The first is that school meals systems have the potential to help enable sustainable food transitions. The second is that favoring well-planned plant-based meals in schools may strengthen this potential. The review and resulting framework highlight the relevance of seeking transdisciplinary dialogue and considering diverse sectors of society, such as public health, the environment, social protection, economic development, and community welfare. We review possible health benefits as well as possible economic and environmental outcomes, especially if school meals are sourced mainly from local communities and eco-friendly agricultural practices. Cross-sectoral implications related to social protection and community welfare are also identified and discussed, as well as potential pathways for materializing sustainable food transitions in schools.
... In addition to covering nutritional needs, the supply of school meals represents a lever for initiating the transition to more sustainable food systems. Improving school meal could contribute to preserve both children's health and the environment [21]. Since 2011, French school meals must fulfil compulsory nutritional guidelines regarding the number of components in a school meal and the type of dishes served [22,23]. ...
Purpose: School meals have the potential to promote more sustainable diets. Our aim was to identify the best trade-off between nutrition and the environment by applying four levers to school meals: (i) reducing the number of meal components, (ii) complying with the French school nutritional guidelines, (iii) increasing the number of vegetarian meals, and/or (iv) avoiding ruminant meat.
Methods: Levers were analyzed alone or in combination in 17 scenarios. For each scenario, 100 series of 20 meals were generated from a database of 2316 school dishes using mathematical optimization. The nutritional quality of the series was assessed through the mean adequacy ratio (MAR/2000 kcal). Seven environmental impacts were considered such as greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE). One scenario, close to series usually served in French schools (containing four vegetarian meals, at least four ruminant meat-based meals, and at least four fish-based meals) was considered as the reference scenario.
Results: Reducing the number of meal components induced an important decrease of the energy content but the environmental impact was little altered. Complying with school specific nutritional guidelines ensured nutritional quality but slightly increased GHGE. Increasing the number of vegetarian meals decreased GHGE (from 11.7 to 61.2%) but decreased nutritional quality, especially when all meals were vegetarian (MAR = 88.1% against 95.3% in the reference scenario). Compared to the reference scenario, series with 12 vegetarian meals, 4 meals containing fish and 4 meals containing pork or poultry reduced GHGE by 50% while maintaining good nutritional quality (MAR = 94.0%).
Conclusion: Updating French school nutritional guidelines by increasing the number of vegetarian meals up to 12 over 20 and serving non-ruminant meats and fish with the other meals would be the best trade-off for decreasing the environmental impacts of meals without altering their nutritional quality.
... Likewise, the climatic effects of introducing organic along with seasonal and local products in the menu have been evaluated, as have those of other drivers (waste reduction, green energy use, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, etc.) (Cerutti et al. 2017;García-Herrero et al. 2021;Pérez-Neira et al. 2021;Rosi et al. 2020). Very few studies on school canteens have analyzed the diet-environment-health trilemma (see Tilman and Clark, 2014) by linking environmental sustainability and human health through nutritional quality indexes and strong environmental impact indicators to evaluate school meals (De Laurentiis et al. 2019). For example, Batlle-Bayer et al. (2021) address the trilemma using different nutritional quality indexes to explore how low-carbon meals in school canteens have greater nutritional benefits. ...
The role of policies and public school canteens as drivers of sustainable and healthy diets is increasingly becoming the center of attention of academics and policy-makers alike. This work therefore aims to assess the environmental, economic and nutritional quality dimensions of the menus consumed across the Local Network of School Canteens in the municipality of Ames (Galicia, Spain). It additionally performs different scenarios to evaluate the effects on the environment-cost-nutritional quality trilemma of implementing two major dietary changes in these menus: introducing more organic products, and shifting toward a more plant-based consumption pattern. To this end, this study considers the following indicators: a) those obtained from an energy and carbon life cycle assessment of the school menus (cradle-to-grave approach), mainly the cumulative energy demand (CED) and the carbon footprint (CF), complemented by some energy efficiency indicators; b) the total cost (TC) of the menus, obtained from their life cycle cost assessment (cradle-to-fork approach); and c) the nutritional quality of the menus, calculated and assessed based on the nutrient rich diet index (NRD 9.3). The CED, CF, TC, and NRD 9.3 index of a daily meal at school canteens are, respectively, estimated at 18.87 MJ, 1.30 kg CO2-eq, EUR 4.65, and 278 per meal. The consumption of animal products and labor (for food preparation) are identified, respectively, as the main environmental impact and economic cost of the menus. The results of our research show how implementing changes in consumption habits toward a more vegetarian diet in school menus makes it possible to include organic products to generate the most positive effects in terms of the environment and nutrition without incurring in cost overruns. Our work discusses the main barriers to be overcome and the political actions that must be enforced to advance the procurement of more sustainable and healthy public food.
Graphical abstract
... In 1985, the major report was completed for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company [60], [64]. The purpose of this report was to provide a database that the container presented no more threat to the environment than competitive containers. ...
... The methodological approach described in this investigation provided flexibility in the selection of objectives and analysis tools, which helped to quantify the sustainability effect of the system at a micro-and mesolevel in the three sustainability dimensions Borridon et al. [106] Development of LCA calculator to support community infrastructure codesign A prototype version of an LCA calculator software tool has been developed to enable rapid assessment of the conceptual design of engineering systems de Laurentlis et al. [64] EATS: a life cycle-based decision support tool for local authorities and school caterers This article focuses on the potential offered by the public food sector for a transformative reduction in the environmental impact of urban food consumption Loppolo et al. [107] Integrating strategic environmental assessment and material flow accounting: a novel approach for moving towards sustainable urban futures ...
Research on developing new methodologies on environmentally conscious manufacturing and way of reducing environmental impacts on product design was started over two decades ago. Environmentally conscious manufacturing has become a challenge to the environment and to the society itself, enforced primarily by government regulations and the customer expectation on environmental issues. In both industry and academics, there is a sizable following for environmental-related issues which are aimed at finding answers to the problems that arise in this newly emerged area. Problems are widespread including the ones related to the life cycle of products, disassembly, material recovery, and remanufacturing and pollution prevention. Only very few researchers have concentrated on ecofriendly products. This paper investigates the literature by classifying more than 200 published references into four categories, viz., design for environment checklist, environmentally conscious manufacturing, life cycle analysis, and material selection.
... lastna kuhinja, zunanji ponudnik, prinašanje hrane od doma, nabava hrane v kiosku v šoli oziroma na prodajnih avtomatih), vključevanju lokalnih dobaviteljev hrane (lokalno kmetijstvo), številu dnevnih obrokov ter vključevanju različnih deležnikov (npr. staršev otrok ipd.) [68,[72][73][74]. Različni dejavniki tako onemogočajo oblikovanje enotnega modela šolske prehrane za vse države [71]. ...
... Sistemi šolske prehrane poleg navedenega lahko pozitivno vplivajo na zdravje otrok (predvsem socialno ogroženih), v širšem smislu pa imajo vpliv na: varovanje okolja, razvoj okolju in naravi prijaznih ter trajnostnih oblik kmetovanja, krepitev lokalnega gospodarstva (nova delovna mesta), ozaveščanje ljudi o pomenu odpadkov hrane itd. [36,74]. ...
Ponudba zdravih in uravnoteženih obrokov v šolah, poleg izobraževanja in ozaveščanja otrok o pomenu zdrave prehrane, predstavlja pomemben javnozdravstveni ukrep. Prispevek prikazuje opis sistema organizirane šolske prehrane v Sloveniji ter primerjavo s trinajstimi državami v Evropi. Slovenija sodi med države s preko sedemdeset letno tradicijo šolske prehrane. Področje je urejeno z zakonodajo, vzgojno-izobraževalni zavodi pa imajo zagotovljene človeške, finančne in prostorske vire, ki omogočajo načrtovanje, pripravo in razdeljevanje šolskih obrokov. Ureditev in pristopi zagotavljanja obrokov v času pouka se v Evropi razlikuje od države do države in so odvisni od različnih dejavnikov. Večina držav ima decentralizirano ureditev, kjer se odgovornost za zagotavljanje šolske prehrane prenese na ustanovitelja (lokalno skupnost) in vzgojno-izobraževalni zavod. Slovenija sodi med države, ki ima poleg celovite organiziranosti ukrepa šolske prehrane in subvencioniranja obrokov zakonodajno urejeno tudi strokovno spremljanje s svetovanjem, ki ga sistematično in usklajeno izvaja Nacionalni inštitut za javno zdravje.
