Transporters relevans i livsmedelsprodukters Carbon Footprint - En studie rörande utsläpp kopplade till transporter av en färdigproducerad produkt till försäljningsställe samt dess relevans i beräkning av Carbon Footprint.

Abstract

As people are becoming increasingly encouraged to consume in an environmentally responsible manner, the importance of guidance and offering accurate information is rising accordingly. Today, many Swedish food producers are marking their products with its corresponding Carbon Footprint. But how reliable are they? It turns out, most of the Carbon Footprints used on products today actually only include the emissions for production of the product - and not transportation to the customer (or store). With this model of describing emissions, a product made next door has the same environmental impact as it would being made on the other side of the world. Through Life Cycle Analysis, this study examines a producer of ecological tomatoes in Sweden and its transportation to the store in order to determine whether the emissions from transportation are of such relevance as to be included in the Carbon Footprints for consumers. Even though the studied company is located in relatively close proximity to the store, and is eco-friendly in its farming, its transportation makes up for a substantial proportion of the tomatoes’ total emissions. Considering this discovery, transport emissions of minimally processed products shipped from overseas ought to have an even larger share of the product’s total emissions. The study concludes that transportation-related emissions of minimally processed foods in general are likely to constitute a large proportion of total emissions during the products life cycle and should therefore be included in the products Carbon Footprint for factual comparison. To conclude this study, brands and stores cannot use different definitions of what should be included in a Carbon Footprint if its function is to allow for customers to make more environmentally-friendly purchasing decisions. When the difference between total emissions with and without transportation to the store is substantial for even one product, Carbon Footprints for all products should cover all emissions.