Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets

Wanner, Silvan; Stöckli, Sabrina; Merian, Sybilla; O'Sullivan, Kevin; Stucki, Matthias

Publication type:	Conference other
Type of review:	Peer review (abstract)
Title:	Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets
Authors:	Wanner, Silvan Stöckli, Sabrina Merian, Sybilla O'Sullivan, Kevin Stucki, Matthias
et. al:	No
Conference details:	11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023
Issue Date:	7-Sep-2023
Language:	German
Subjects:	LCA; Behaviour change; Nutrition; Biodiversity footprint
Subject (DDC):	338.927: Environmental economics and sustainable development 363: Environmental and security problems
Abstract:	Over recent decades, global levels of food production have experienced unprecedented growth rates. This progress has come at high environmental costs. Soil degradation, water scarcity, and loss of biodiversity endanger the future fertility of our planet (United Nations, 2019). Simultaneously, roughly one-third of global annual food quantities produced for human consumption is either lost or wasted (FAO, 2018). With a share of up to 40%, Swiss consumers at the end of the food supply chain are responsible for the highest proportion of food wasted. The ShopHero project follows a novel, scalable and tailored approach for consumers to track and monitor the sustainability of their groceries and food waste, and therefore, to change their behaviour. With the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), European customers have the right to access their loyalty card data. The analysis is based on the loyalty card data from 347 households. With these automatically collected digital receipts from grocery purchases, household’s and individual environmental impact are calculated, food-wasting behaviour is estimated, and adaptive interventions are tailored. The analysis of customer data shows that a shift from current purchasing behaviour that exclude, or limit animal products can yield substantial reductions in environmental impacts reducing food's land use by more than 70% and CO2-emissions by around 50%. A substitution of the product with the highest emissions reduction potential on each shopping trip, could achieve a mean emissions reduction of 26% (SD=8.7%) for households. To assess the biodiversity impact of the consumer’s purchasing baskets, The origin of the products was identified with trade data from the Swiss import and export statistics. Specific land use biodiversity impacts were added, using country-level characterisation factors by Chaudhary et al., (2015). Country-specific differences are striking. Per ton, coffee, cocoa, nuts and spices have the highest biodiversity loss. First results show that the total biodiversity footprint of the consumers baskets is dominated by two products: Coffee and cocoa account for 90% of the total biodiversity footprint. A renunciation, consumption reduction or change of origin of just those two products can reduce the total biodiversity impact significantly. Even though basic food such as potatoes or cereals are consumed in greater quantities, their relative impact to biodiversity loss is small. The study shows that with small adjustments in the origin and type of purchased food, substantial reductions in both, the biodiversity and carbon footprint of individual food baskets can be achieved. Communication measurements on both a general and specific level could incentivise consumers to adjust their shopping behaviour to a more sustainable nutrition.
URI:	https://digitalcollection.zhaw.ch/handle/11475/30515
Fulltext version:	Published version
License (according to publishing contract):	Not specified
Departement:	Life Sciences and Facility Management
Organisational Unit:	Institute of Natural Resource Sciences (IUNR)
Published as part of the ZHAW project:	ShopHero
Appears in collections:	Publikationen Life Sciences und Facility Management

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Wanner, S., Stöckli, S., Merian, S., O’Sullivan, K., & Stucki, M. (2023, September 7). Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets. 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023.

Wanner, S. et al. (2023) ‘Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets’, in 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023.

S. Wanner, S. Stöckli, S. Merian, K. O’Sullivan, and M. Stucki, “Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets,” in 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023, Sep. 2023.

WANNER, Silvan, Sabrina STÖCKLI, Sybilla MERIAN, Kevin O’SULLIVAN und Matthias STUCKI, 2023. Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets. In: 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023. Conference presentation. 7 September 2023

Wanner, Silvan, Sabrina Stöckli, Sybilla Merian, Kevin O’Sullivan, and Matthias Stucki. 2023. “Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets.” Conference presentation. In 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023.

Wanner, Silvan, et al. “Digital receipt based monitoring of carbon and biodiversity footprints of individual food baskets.” 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management (LCM), Lille, France, 6-8 September 2023, 2023.