The global warming potential of two healthy Nordic diets compared with the average Danish diet

• Published in: Climatic change 2013, Vol.116 (2), p.249-262
• Main Authors: Saxe, Henrik, Larsen, Thomas Meinert, Mogensen, Lisbeth
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Biological and medical sciences; Climate change; Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; Dairy products; Diet; Diets; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Emissions; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Food; Food industries; Foods; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Global warming; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Legumes; Life cycle analysis; Life cycle assessment; Life cycle engineering; Meat; Meteorology; Miscellaneous; Nutrition research; Proteins
• ISSN: 0165-0009; 1573-1480
• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-012-0495-4

The potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the production of food for three different diets are compared using consequential Life Cycle Assessment. Diet 1 is an Average Danish Diet (ADD); diet 2 is based on the Nordic Nutritional Recommendations (NNR), whilst diet 3 is a New Nordic Diet (NND) developed by the OPUS project. The NND contains locally produced Nordic foods where more than 75 % is organically produced. NNR and NND include less meat and more fruit and vegetables than the ADD. All diets were adjusted to contain a similar energy and protein content. The GHG emissions from the provision of NNR and NND were lower than for ADD, 8 % and 7 % respectively. If GHG emissions from transport (locally produced versus imported food) are also taken into account, the difference in GHG emissions between NND and ADD increases to 12 %. If the production method (organic versus conventional) is taken into account so that the ADD contains the actual ratio of organically produced food (6.6 %) and the NND contains 80 %, the GHG emissions for the NND are only 6 % less than for the ADD. When the NND was optimised to be more climate friendly, the global warming potential of the NND was 27 % lower than it was for the ADD. This was achieved by including less beef, and only including organic produce if the GHG emissions are lower than for the conventional version, or by substituting all meat with legumes, dairy products and eggs.