UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change ESCI-UPF, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Passeig Pujades 1, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change ESCI-UPF, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Passeig Pujades 1, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Feb 20;756:143879. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143879. Epub 2020 Dec 3.
Shifting to plant-based and low-carbon diets is a key measure for climate change mitigation. In this regard, national and local governments are setting goals and actions to tackle this issue. The municipality of Barcelona has set an intervention for the academic year 2020-21: introducing low-carbon meals in public schools. This study assesses the environmental and nutritional benefits of this intervention by applying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, with an energy and nutritional functional unit; and combined it with the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus approach, by considering three WEF resources-based impacts (Blue Water Footprint (BWF), Primary Energy Demand (PED) and Land Use (LU)) and the Global Warming Potential (GWP). The transition to a low-carbon meal would reduce between 46 and 60% the environmental impacts. These benefits could even be higher when extra interventions within the school boundaries are applied. More research in behavioural change is needed in order to evaluate both: the acceptance of the new menus by scholars and the adaptation of the school kitchen staff to the new menu. Finally, it is suggested to monitor the environmental and nutritional changes of the introduction of low-carbon meals within the school menus in an integrated way.
转向植物性和低碳饮食是气候变化缓解的关键措施。在这方面，国家和地方政府正在制定目标和行动来解决这个问题。巴塞罗那市为 2020-21 学年制定了一项干预措施：在公立学校引入低碳餐。本研究通过应用生命周期评估 (LCA) 方法，采用能源和营养功能单位，并结合水-能源-食品 (WEF) 关系方法，考虑到三个 WEF 资源基础影响（蓝水足迹 (BWF)、初级能源需求 (PED) 和土地利用 (LU)) 和全球变暖潜势 (GWP)，评估了这一干预措施的环境和营养效益。向低碳餐的转变将减少 46%至 60%的环境影响。当在学校范围内实施额外干预措施时，这些好处甚至可能更高。需要更多关于行为改变的研究，以便评估学者对新菜单的接受程度以及学校厨房工作人员对新菜单的适应程度。最后，建议以综合方式监测学校菜单中引入低碳餐的环境和营养变化。
