PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The food we produce and consume has a significant impact on the environment, generating greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. It is especially in the EU, where the food chain is carbon-intensive, accounting for 30% of all EU GHG emissions. The food sector also exploits land and water resources, contributes to pollution and the depletion of phosphorus, and uses harmful chemical herbicides and pesticides. It has been widely shown that diets based on a high intake of animal-derived products, and the related intake of saturated fats and red meats above dietary recommendations, are responsible for high CO2 emissions. Furthermore, food waste is responsible for at least 170 Mt CO2 eq per year. Awareness to the problem is lacking. While food is acknowledged to be a key factor affecting health, the impact that food production and consumption has on global resources is less well known. The Europe 2020 Strategy foresees that by 2020 incentives for healthier and more sustainable food production and consumption will be widespread and will have driven a 20% reduction in the food chain’s resource inputs and that disposal of edible food waste would have been halved across the EU.
OBJECTIVES
The SU-EATABLE LIFE project aimed to demonstrate the possibility of engaging EU citizens to adopt a sustainable and healthy diet, leading to a substantial reduction in GHG emissions and water consumption. A series of experimental measures would be carried out in the canteens of the University of Manchester and the University of Portsmouth, reaching around 59 000 students, as well as at Baxter Storey and Bennet Hay canteens reaching 7 000 employees.
EU citizens would also be encouraged to use a simple IT system, the GreenApes engagement platform, which would allow them to understand more about sustainable food, while monitoring the impact of their dietary changes on CO2 emissions and water saving. The project could thus significantly contribute to reaching the European Commission target of achieving a 40% reduction in GHGs by 2030.
RESULTS
The SU-EATABLE LIFE project team demonstrated the possibility of engaging with EU citizens, specifically students and workers in their daily eating places, with the aim of convincing them to adopt a sustainable and healthy diet, leading to a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water consumption.
The socio-economic benefits of this large-scale social experiment on food and climate align with EU policy, such as the EU Climate Pact. The project team also demonstrated the co-benefits of a long-term strategy to address environmentally-critical challenges through diet, and at the same time improve the health of citizens, a strategy centred around the 'double pyramid on food and the environment approach'.
Despite difficulties linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project informed 75 427 students and engaged 4 277 students at University cafeterias; and informed 11 200 workers and engaged 2 180 workers at companies' canteens.
The project team produced and published a multilevel database of carbon and water footprint values for food commodities, based on a standardised methodology, to extract information and assign optimal footprint values and uncertainties to food items. This enabled the development and fine-tuning of a robust scientific approach for the overall impact assessment in terms of CO2 eq. and water footprint of meals, and offered a strong foundation for the final quantitative indicators.
The involvement of thousands of students and workers in concrete dietary experiments made it possible to achieve significant environmental/climate impacts based on the number of delivered meals. In addition to its Governance and Information character, through its engagement and training activities in canteens and cafeterias in Italy and the UK that helped people adopt healthier and more sustainable meals twice per day, it was estimated that about 4 510 tons of CO2 eq. emissions were saved, and about 4.23 million cubic metres of water was saved.
On the social side, the project created positive interactions between different food cultures. The sustainable food choices developed by SU-EATABLE LIFE, defined as “OPP” in UK and “MPFF” in Italy, were differentiated to consider the basic cultural differences of typical foods served in the countries.
The project team disseminated a series of digital communication initiatives (e.g. webinars, events by Barilla foundation, social media activity, guidelines to promote sustainable diets among canteens, retailers and citizens, publications, a cookbook of sustainable recipes, specific policy recommendations), which continue to attract interest from stakeholders and the public.
Finally, thanks to intensive action by the stakeholders involved, the project team identified many replication actions in universities and large companies’ canteens, as well as in big catering companies. A forecast of indicators beyond three years after project-end, based on an estimated 48 381 replications in the UK and 356 147 in Italy, predicted total expected savings of CO2 emissions in the UK of 34 kilotons/year and in Italy of 265 kilotons/year, and total expected saving of water in the UK of 28.8 Mm3/year and in Italy of 301.3 Mm3/year.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report (see "Read more" section).
