Looking at life cycle key to product sustainability - CSIRO

By Jane Byrne

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Greenhouse gas

Life cycle analyses for the greenhouse gas emissions and water use impacts of food products have been produced as part of joint research project with Mars, claims Australia’s national science agency.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said it has collaborated with confectionery maker, Mars Australia, in a year long project to produce a database and information toolkit that will shortly be available to food businesses to help them become more sustainable.

According to Dr Roger Bektash, director of scientific affairs for Mars Australia, the company, as a result of the collaboration, now has key findings that show where significant opportunities exist to reduce the impact of its operations:

Our action now is to transform these into business strategies that will deliver meaningful, tangible benefits​.”

And CSIRO maintains that by assessing and minimising the carbon and water footprint of Mars’ operations, its scientific understanding of the environmental impacts of the food industry has increased.

Farm to fork impact

Dr Brad Ridoutt, Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Agricultural Sustainability Initiative, claims that, in many cases, the most important environmental impacts occur in the supply chain, particularly in the agricultural stages:

“It is important that food companies understand these impacts because retailers, consumers, NGOs and governments are challenging large food manufacturers to use their leadership, supply chain power, know-how and resources to drive real sustainability improvements across the whole product life cycle, from farm to fork.”

Water footprint

Ridoutt told FoodProductionDaily.com that the popularisation of product carbon footprinting is evidence of the growing awareness of the need to take a life cycle approach, and he said that one of the key initiatives of the project with Mars has been the development of new methods for product water footprinting:

“Current approaches to calculating product water footprints do not differentiate adequately between irrigation water and natural rainfall that occurs over agricultural lands, despite the two having very different opportunity costs.

“In addition, the regional nature of water scarcity is not recognized. This means that figures in the media describing the water used to produce various common food and beverage products have the potential to be misleading and confusing.”

Standardisation

According to Ridoutt, the approach to product water footprinting developed in the Mars-CSIRO sustainability project overcomes these weaknesses and represents a major step forward.

“Even companies situated in locations of water abundance may be exposed to the impacts of water scarcity through their supply chains. In order to adapt to increased climate variability and the pending world water crisis, companies need to understand these risks and develop appropriate risk management and growth strategies,” ​he said.

Ridoutt explained that CSIRO is now engaging with other scientists, food manufacturers and industry associations is order to see standardised methods for water footprinting adopted.

“Ultimately, we would like to see a standard for water footprinting which is analogous to PAS2050, the specification for product carbon footprinting developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in conjunction with the UK’s Carbon Trust and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),”​ he added.

Related topics Processing & Packaging

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