Resources

Name Default weight

Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers

Notes:

J. Poore and T. Nemecek

Food’s environmental impacts are created by millions of diverse producers. To identify solutions that are effective under this heterogeneity, we consolidated data covering five environmental indicators; 38,700 farms; and 1600 processors, packaging types, and retailers. Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product, creating substantial mitigation opportunities.However, mitigation is complicated by trade-offs, multiple ways for producers to achieve low impacts, and interactions throughout the supply chain. Producers have limits on how far they can reduce impacts. Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change.Cumulatively, our findings support an approach where producers monitor their own impacts,flexibly meet environmental targets by choosing from multiple practices, and communicate their impacts to consumers.

URL: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/360/6392/987.full.pdf

Default weight: 8

Peer reviewed: Yes
Number of products: Above 10 (2 penalty points)
Meta study: Yes
Commissioned: No
Year of study: After 2005
Methodology described: Yes
Reputation of source: High

Products

Product Notes Country origin Country consumption