What is the carbon footprint?
Carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases emitted over the full life cycle of a product or service.
What is a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA)?
LCA is the assessment of the environmental impact of a given product or service throughout its lifespan. The goal of the LCA is to enable the comparison of the environmental performance of products and services, to be able to choose the least burdensome one. Applied as such, one can derive the environmental footprint of a product or service.
How to make climate smart food choices?
Think about what is in season. Seasonal calendars have been a very popular tool to raise awareness of the best time to eat fruit and vegetables.
Think local.
The popular slogan‚ buying local acquired a green perception as a result of the climate change debate, yet is too simplistic when considering the difficulties in defining the term – local. Today’s EU supply is already largely local, taking into account that 75% of European F&V production is taking place in the Mediterranean basin. Also the availability of non-indigenous fruit such as oranges and bananas makes a significant contribution to nutrition and health goals.
What about greenhouse production?
Greenhouse production is often negatively portrayed. Tremendous efforts to increase efficiency and reduce dependency on fossil fuels (e.g. using cogeneration, waste heat and CO2) have vastly improved the environmental record of greenhouse production. In the Netherlands greenhouse production nowadays supplies 10% of the country’s electricity production. Besides this, greenhouse production also has advantages with regard to water use, pesticide use, land use, etc. Furthermore, it also provides a more stable employment need throughout the year, compared to seasonal peaks in outdoor production.
What is the sector doing to reduce the impact of fruit and vegetables on climate change?
The fruit and vegetable sector has been proactive in developing sustainable agricultural practices to cope with increased requirements and is continuously looking for improvements in the supply chain. The sector has seen the highest uptake of organic and integrated farming systems and is addressing its emissions through the establishment of a carbon footprint methodology, increasingly efficient greenhouse production, improved logistics, carbon offsetting schemes, etc.