A comparative assessment of food chain emissions from Norway, UK, Germany and Italy.

ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan DOI: 10.18462/iir.iccc2024.1100 A comparative assessment of food chain emissions from Norway, UK, Germany and Italy Shraddha MEHTA*(a), Alan FOSTER (b), Antonio ROSETTI (c) , Jan BENGSCH(a), Lukas KÖSTER(a), Judith EVANS(b), Yosr ALLOUCHE(d), Kristina N. Widell(a), Cristina Maria IORDAN(a) (a) SINTEF Ocean Trondheim, 7010, Norway *Corresponding author: [email protected] (b) London South Bank University Bristol, BS40 5DU UK, [email protected] (c) CNR Construction Technology Institute, Padua, 35127, ITALY, [email protected] (d) The International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) Paris, 75017, France ABSTRACT The aim of this work is to estimate the food supply chain greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for Norway, the UK, Germany and Italy and perform a comparative analysis for these countries. The contribution of emissions from the cold chain compared to the total emissions from the food chain are described. The emissions were calculated based on the Air Emission Accounts of economic activities related to food and supplemented with other secondary data. The emissions from these countries were compared to identify the similarities and deviations related to factors such as energy supply, technology in the food sector and regulatory framework. The potential to reduce emissions by introducing emerging technologies and refrigerants to the cold chain was also mapped. The per capita emissions per sector for all countries were calculated. It was found that the highest emissions were from manufacture of food and beverages and domestic food consumption. Keywords: Food chain, cold chains, Greenhouse gases, Emission reduction, Fugitive emissions 1. INTRODUCTION Searchinger et al. (2018) from World Resources Institute quoted in December 2018 "If we tried to produce all the food needed in 2050 using today’s production systems, the world would have to convert most of its remaining forest, and agriculture alone would produce almost twice the emissions allowable from all human activities". The challenge of creating a sustainable food future involves balancing many competing needs. The world must feed many more people, provide a resilient and a healthy access to food while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental impacts of harvesting and post harvesting activities. In 2012, the GHG emissions occurring in Norway associated to food consumption were estimated to 12.5% of the total 54 Mt CO2e (Oort et al., 2019). In 2017, the emissions from the Norwegian agriculture sector were calculated to 4.5 Mt CO2e which is equivalent to 8.5% of all national emissions. The largest share of these emissions were associated with animal husbandry including, emissions from enteric fermentation (Oort et al., 2019). In 2019, Germany's total GHG-emissions were estimated to 810 Mt CO2e (UBA, 2021). According to Grethe et al. (2021), the GHG emissions from agriculture and the food value chain account for 26% and 33% of the total German emissions, respectively. This is equivalent to the emissions of 211 Mt CO2e and 267 Mt CO2e. However, it must be said that it was very difficult to find concrete figures for the German food sector in the context of this study. In comparison and together with other EU countries, there is a clear potential for improvement in data collection and availability to identify potential GHG-emission reduction. Forbes et al. (2021) analysed greenhouse gas emissions associated to the production and consumption of food and drinks consumed in the UK. They estimated the total UK food system emissions in 2019 to be 158 Mt CO2e, though not all of these emissions occurred in the UK. According to Foster et al. (2022), in 2019 the refrigeration sector in the UK food cold chain accounted for approximately 28.6 TWh of the total electrical ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan energy consumption. Emissions associated to the electrical energy consumption and the diesel consumption for transport refrigeration units (TRUs) were between 6.9 and 7.9 Mt CO2e per annum. According to the authors’ knowledge, a consistent estimation of the Italian food chain carbon footprint is not available in the open literature, nevertheless many studies have been carried out to discuss the sustainability of the Italian Mediterranean diet pattern. For example, in Tucci et al. (2022), the actual daily pro-capita carbon footprint of the Italian diet can be estimated in 3.74±0.92 kg CO2e, while Tagliabue et. al. (2015) reports a significantly larger value (5.4 kg CO2e). Based on these studies, the total carbon footprint can be estimated to be in the range of 80 - 115 Mt CO2e per year, but due to the different methodologies and boundaries of these studies, it is not possible to use these for comparison with other countries. The estimates of the potential emissions from the food chain found in literature for different countries are not directly comparable as they are from different years and methods. This points to the necessity to develop a coherent estimation for various European food chains. The current study presents the food chain estimates for the four countries based on a consistent approach, making them comparable. In addition, it identifies the most emitting sectors in the food value chain which is a prerequisite for the development of effective strategies for emissions reduction. 2. METHODOLOGY The system boundary included the food or beverage from the farm to consumption. The emissions data sources are described in Section 2.1. These are categorised through a Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE). All food sectors (except at the consumption) are included in the NACE defined sectors. Commonly, the NACE sectors contain more economic activity than just food related. Therefore, the food related part of the emission has to be separated from the rest. This it done by a concept of "food share" which is also described in a section 2.1. Emissions from the following NACE sectors were used as the basis for the food sector emissions shown below (NACE codes for the sectors are shown in brackets): • Agriculture, fishing, and aquaculture (A01 and A03) • Manufacture of food products and beverages (C10 and C11) • Wholesale and Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G46 and G47) • Land transport and transport via pipelines and water transport (H50) • Warehousing and support activities for transportation (H52) • Accommodation and Food and beverage service activities (I55 and I56) • Domestic food shopping transport (transport from shop to home) (SIC n/a) • Domestic food consumption (SIC n/a) In this work, the GHG emissions are classified into Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from each of the food chain sectors. Scope 1 emissions caused by fugitive emissions of F-gases leakage from refrigeration equipment are separated from other Scope 1 emissions (on-site fuel combustion for generation of electricity and heat; fuel combustion for food transport and other GHG gases). Scope 2 emissions are from the purchased energy, e.g. grid electricity and heat networks. A carbon intensity factor of the grid was applied for 2019 to convert grid electricity to carbon emissions. Table 1 includes the emission factors used for calculating the scope 2 emissions. 2019 was selected as the reference year was not affected by the pandemic. The emissions from agriculture and fishing (including aquaculture) were only those associated with the energy use in this sector (e.g. cooling and heating needs, transportation of vehicles, fishing vessels and other machinery). Emissions from fertilisers and farm waste, chemicals added to the land and from the animals and food were excluded, as these were outside the scope of this work. Table 1 Emission factors for the electricity consumed in 2019 Norway Germany UK Italy Kg.CO 2 e /kWh 0.0171 0.4382 0.2563 0.2694 1https://www.nve.no/nytt-fra-nve/nyheter-energi/lavt-klimagassutslipp-knyttet-til-norsk-stroemforbruk-i-2021/ 2 Bilanz 2019: CO2-Emissionen pro Kilowattstunde Strom sinken weiter | Umweltbundesamt (UBA) 3 UK Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting. 4 ISPRA 2021. ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan 2.1. Data sources Scope 1 data was provided for each country by the Air Emissions Accounts (AEA), a database that “records the flows of gaseous and particulate materials emitted into the atmosphere as a result of economic activity” (AEA, EUROSTAT, 2023). The AEA offers a detailed breakdown by economic activities including 64 production activities and a separate set regarding household activities. The GHG emissions included in the AEA are Carbon dioxide; Methane; Nitrous oxide; Hydrofluorocarbons; Perfluorocarbons; Nitrogen trifluoride and sulphur hexafluoride. Emissions caused by natural phenomena, anthropogenic emissions recorded under Land Use - Land Use Changes and Forestry (LULUCF) are excluded. The AEA are combined with Physical Energy Flow Accounts (ESA, 2023), which records the flows of energy from the environment to the economy, within the economy and from the economy back to the environment. PEFA allow to read the interactions between the natural system and the anthropic system connected to the procurement, transformation and use of energy, in a way that is fully compatible with both the accounting structures and principles of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) and with the standards, the delimitation of the system, the classifications and the methodologies of the national accounts defined by the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010). Only the emissions from agriculture and fishing and manufacture of food and beverages could be entirely associated with the food chain, using the available NACE codes in the AEA database (A01+A03 for agriculture and fishing and C10+C11 for Food and Beverage Manufacture). Other sectors, such as transport or retail, as defined in the reference database, include emissions related to economic sectors broader in scope than the boundaries defined in this paper or include emission for the same activity but including a variety of products other than food. Therefore, the proportion of emissions from these sectors which are considered only from food and beverage were established. This is referred to as the “food share”. Different approaches have been used to compute food shares, considering a relevant base to identify the food related activities. Table 2 shows, for each sector requiring a food share, both the parameter used to compute the food share factors and the resulting factors for each country. Table 2. Food share factors (%) and the parameter used to compute them. The codes (H52 etc.) refers to the classification by NACE. Sector Share factor parameter Norway Germany UK Italy Warehousing and support activities for transportation (H52) Derived from land and water Transport food share 6.0 15.0 22.0 17.0 Land transport and transport via pipelines (H49) Transported goods [kt-km] 36.0 23.0 31.0 25.4 Water transport (H50) Transported goods [t] 3.4 11.0 2.5 9.3 Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G47) Turnover [€] 43.5 37.7 37.4 39.8 Wholesale trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles (G46) Turnover [€] 36.5 17.9 13.0 17.8 Food and beverage service activities (I56) Turnover [€] 65.4 81.1 74.0 72.5 Domestic food shopping transport Travelled distance per capita [km pp] 4.0 4.0 4.4 7.0 ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan The food share of fugitive emissions was 100% for all sectors. Initial studies showed that the emissions from refrigeration in the sectors were much higher than for air conditioning and therefore it was a reasonable estimate to consider all fugitive emissions were due to the food. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The emissions of Scope 1 excluding fugitive, Scope 1 fugitive and Scope 2 from the different sectors are calculated in total MtCO2e and in kgCO2e per capita and presented in Table 3 to Table 5. The total emissions including both Scope 1 and 2 are included in Table 6. Table 3 Scope 1 emissions from food chain in Norway, Germany, the UK and Italy in 2019 in MtCO2e, excluding fugitive emissions) Scope 1 (excl.fugitive) Norway Germany UK Italy Sector Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Agriculture, fishing and aquaculture 1.3 241.4 8.4 99.7 7.6 111.8 8.9 147.2 Food Manufacture 0.5 88.5 11.3 134.6 6.7 98.7 5.2 86.0 Storage and logistics 0.0 4.4 1.4 16.9 0.4 5.6 0.4 6.6 Transport 1.4 255.3 5.9 71.0 7.4 108.3 5.9 97.6 Retail and wholesale trade 0.4 72.9 4.1 49.1 3.5 52.0 1.9 31.4 Food and beverage service 0.0 7.3 1.9 22.1 2.4 35.6 1.8 29.8 Domestic transport 0.2 29.5 3.8 45.9 2.7 40.2 4.3 70.8 Domestic food consumption 0.0 0.0 0.2 2.9 1.4 20.0 5.9 97.1 Total 3.8 699.3 37.1 442.3 32.1 472.3 34.3 566.5 Germany, with the largest population, has as expected the highest number of total Scope 1 emissions, followed by UK and Italy, with similar population and emissions. Norway has a small population and also low total emissions. Considering per capita emissions, Norway has the highest emissions followed by Italy, with similar emissions from Germany and the UK. Considering per capita emissions, Norway has 64% higher Scope 1 emissions for agriculture, fishing and aquaculture than the second highest (Italy). An explanation could be that Norway produces and exports large quantities of fish, which have emissions related to fuel consumption in the fishing vessels. Germany has 36% higher emissions per capita for food manufacture than the second highest (UK). Germany is a net exporter of meat and dairy and this may account for the high emissions. Norway has 95% lower emissions for storage than the next lowest (Germany and UK). This could be because Norway tends to use electricity for heating and therefore most heating energy would be in Scope 2 not Scope 1. Norway has 161% higher emissions for transport than the next highest (UK). This is mainly ocean transport and could also be due to the transport services associated with the aquaculture sector and export of seafood. For retail, emissions appear to reflect the different latitudes of the considered countries thus the increasing request for heating when moving from south (Italy) to north (Norway). Norway has 76% lower emissions for Food and beverage services than the next lowest (UK). ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan Norway has a low propensity to consume food in restaurants or other food services. There is a factor of 36 difference between the highest (Italy) and lowest (Germany) domestic emissions. Table 4 Scope 1 fugitive emissions from food chain in Norway, Germany, the UK and Italy in 2019 in MtCO2e Scope 1 Fugitive Norway Germany UK Italy Sector Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Agriculture, fishing and aquaculture 0.0 0.9 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.1 1.7 Food Manufacture 0.0 0.4 1.0 11.9 0.6 8.4 2.2 36.4 Storage and logistics 0.0 0.0 0.7 7.9 0.5 7.2 0.0 0.0 Transport 0.0 3.2 0.6 7.0 0.2 2.8 0.2 3.3 Retail and wholesale trade 0.0 4.6 1.1 13.4 3.3 48.5 7.9 130.7 Food and beverage service 0.1 12.9 0.2 3.0 0.4 6.5 0.7 11.6 Domestic transport 0.0 0.0 0.1 1.0 0.1 1.2 0.1 1.5 Domestic food consumption 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 2.1 0.0 0.0 Total 0.1 22.1 3.7 44.2 5.3 77.3 11.2 185.1 Total retail fugitive emissions for all countries represents 62 of total fugitive emissions. This agrees well with Foster et al. (2023) which reported 56% of UK fugitive emissions were from retail. Norway has high F-gas taxes and a good climate for CO2 refrigeration and Italy has a more challenging environment for CO2 refrigeration, which is likely to account for these differences. Table 5 Scope 2 emissions from food chain in Norway, Germany, the UK and Italy in 2019 in MtCO2e Scope 2 Norway Germany UK Italy Sector Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Agriculture, fishing and aquaculture 0.04 7.11 1.81 21.59 1.08 15.91 1.40 23.16 Food Manufacture 0.05 8.97 8.07 96.36 2.78 40.95 3.90 64.50 Storage and logistics 0.02 3.70 0.28 3.40 0.02 0.29 0.10 1.65 Transport 0.00 0.00 1.15 13.76 0.55 8.10 1.00 16.54 Retail and wholesale trade 0.02 4.43 3.12 37.20 1.82 26.81 1.78 29.44 Food and beverage service 0.02 3.38 3.81 45.50 2.18 32.11 2.40 39.69 Domestic transport 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan Domestic food consumption 0.01 2.57 18.80 224.44 4.24 62.46 3.90 64.50 Total 0.2 30.2 37.1 442.3 12.7 186.6 14.5 239.5 Total Scope 2 emissions per capita are the highest for Germany and the lowest for Norway due to the respective emission factors for electricity consumed. 42% of total Scope 2 emissions for all countries occurred in domestic food consumption. A similar conclusion was found by Foster et al. (2023) where 38% of the Scope 2 refrigeration emissions occurred in the domestic sector. To better compare sectors between different countries requires looking at energy consumption rather than emissions. This will be done in a further paper. 3.1. Total emissions The scope 1 and 2 emissions for all the sectors are summed into the total emissions from the food chain for all countries in Table 6. Table 6 Total Scope 1 and 2 emissions from food chain in Norway, Germany, the UK and Italy in 2019 in MtCO2e and per capita emissions in kg CO2e Sector Norway Germany UK Italy Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Total in MtCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Agriculture, fishing and aquaculture 1.35 249.4 10.2 121.4 8.7 128.5 10.4 172.0 Food and beverage manufacture 0.53 97.9 20.4 242.9 10.1 148.0 11.3 186.9 Storage and logistics 0.04 8.1 2.4 28.2 0.9 13.1 0.5 8.3 Transport 1.40 258.5 7.7 91.7 8.1 119.0 7.1 115.0 Retail and wholesale trade 0.44 81.9 8.4 99.7 8.0 117.6 11.6 191.5 Food and beverage service 0.13 23.6 5.9 70.6 5.0 74.2 4.9 81.0 Domestic transport 0.16 29.5 3.9 46.9 2.8 41.4 4.4 72.3 Domestic food consumption 0.01 2.6 19.1 227.4 5.7 84.6 9.8 161.6 Total 4.07 751.5 77.8 928.8 50.0 736.23 59.9 991.1 ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan 4. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK Italy had the highest per capita emissions from the food sectors studied. Retail and wholesale trade and domestic food consumption emissions were higher for Italy than any of the other countries. Although Norway has a small population and therefore low total emissions, its emissions are quite high considering its very low electrical emission carbon intensity. This can be explained by the large fishing and transport sector in this country. The UK had the lowest total per capita emissions, the second lowest low carbon emission factor for electricity and no particularly intensive sectors may explain this. Scope 1 emissions (excluding fugitive) were highest in the agricultural and transport sectors. This is likely to be due to the reliance of diesel fuel for both land and marine transport. This has a greater effect on Norway whose fishing sector is very large in proportion to their population. The retail sector has been shown to be the major contributor (62%) to fugitive emissions, with Italy having the highest and Norway the lowest per capita emissions. This is down to the use of natural refrigerants for example CO2, which is much higher in Norway than Italy. Scope 2 emissions are dominated by the electrical emission carbon intensity, leading to high emissions in Germany and low emissions in Norway. The emission factor of the electricity in these countries is different, with Norway having the highest share of renewable energy and Germany the lowest. Although the quantification in this study is based on a consistent approach, the underlying data is reported by individual countries and needs to be completely understood. Further work will investigate any possible overestimations or underestimations made in the use of existing data and to adjust the numbers to only reflect the share of emissions from the food chain. This work will continue to further include a comparison Figure 1 Share of emissions from the different sectors to the total scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. 0,00 100,00 200,00 300,00 400,00 500,00 600,00 700,00 800,00 900,00 1000,00 Per capita in kgCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Per capita in kgCO2e Norway Germany UK Italy Per capita emissions and contribution from the different sectors in kgCO2e Agriculture, fishing and aquaculture Food Manufacture Storage and logistics Transport Retail and wholesale trade Food and beverage service Domestic food consumption Domestic transport ICCC2024 | 8th IIR International Conference on Sustainability and the Cold Chain | June 9-11 | Tokyo, Japan with other countries in the EU and widening the system boundary to include food packaging and waste treatment. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work has been carried out as part of project ENOUGH that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101036588. NOMENCLATURE Scope 1 emissions Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources for the reporting company (GHG protocol) Scope 2 emissions: Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity (GHG protocol) Scope 3 emissions: Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions (not included in scope 2) that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emission (GHG protocol) CO 2 e. or Carbon dioxide equivalents A carbon dioxide equivalent or CO2 equivalent, abbreviated as CO2-eq is a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases on the basis of their global-warming potential (GWP), by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming potential. 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