This report, published by Defra, looks at around 150 of the UK's highest selling food products representing the main food categories (carbohydrates, meat and dairy products, fruit and veg etc).
Taking a life cycle perspective, it looks at what evidence exists as regards their environmental impacts across a range of issues, including climate change, pesticides and water use.
A few of its main conclusions are as follows:
- Organic vs conventional: for many but not all foods the environmental impacts of organic foods are lower. There will be variation both by food type and by environmental impact category (eg. water, global warming potential etc).
- Local vs global: no strong evidence to show that local has a lower environmental impact.
- Cold vs fresh vs preserved: chilled/frozen foods have a higher embedded energy than non chilled, but the conclusions are complicated by, among other things, the waste issue.
- Importance of transport: car based shopping and aviation are the main causes of concern.
- Meat and dairy products emerge as having a high global warming potential, most of which occurs at the livestock rearing stage.
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