low carbon

World Trade Organisation rules do not allow governments to discriminate directly between imported products on the basis of production and processing methods. If it did governments would be able to choose to buy food from abroad with a lower carbon footprint. Defra figures published in 2006 showed that £21.9 billion of food is imported compared to £9.8 billion exported. (Source: The Food Industry Sustainability Strategy )

This is a theme for the lowcarbonworks project because it illustrates one type of  barrier to change on the global scale.

However, even if this legal barrier were removed, if government’s food purchases were influenced by the same factors as individual consumers: price, taste, sell-by date, change would still stall.

What portentous events may have sparked the Nottingham Declaration? Find out more by reading the learning history accesible from the green link

Nottingham Learning History

Click on the link above to open the history and then add your comments in the box below.

According to UK government statistics cited in The Food Industry Sustainability Strategy (1.1.12) the food industry accounts for around 126TWh of energy use per year which is equivalent to about 14% of energy consumption by UK businesses. It is a major contributor to UK carbon emissions with 7 million tonnes of carbon per year.

(2.2.4) “The Office of National Statistics has recently estimated that when the entire life cycle of goods and services is taken into account, food and drink (and tobacco) products are the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions associated with UK household consumption.”

More hopefully perhaps, (2.2.3) post 1990s there has been a downward trend in the UK food manufacturing sector’s CO2 emissions relative to total manufacturing and the UK overall.

(4.1.8) From the late 1990s:

The food industry’s energy efficiency per tonne of production improved by 9.5% compared to the voluntary target of 7.5%

“It achieved absolute annual savings of 73,000 tonnes of carbon, despite a reported increase in production throughput of around 8%.”

(4.1.10) “Significant progress is being made in the food manufacturing sector which has reduced energy use in absolute terms by 2.8% since the 1990s and seen the carbon attached to its energy use reduced by 16% - just over half due to its own efforts, and the rest due to electricity generators” 

The Food Industry Sustainability Strategy can be downloaded from Defra online.