Environmental impacts of sweets, crisps and soft drinks

Nilsson K, Sund V and Florén B (2011). The environmental impact of the consumption of sweets, crisps and soft drinks. SIK study comme TemaNord, Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen
 
This is one of the few studies I’ve seen that examines the environmental impacts of sweets, crisps and soft drinks.  Overall they have a pretty low environmental impact. The worst are foam sweets – a helpful picture is provided in the report for those of you above these things...

Dark chocolate has a fairly low impact but milk chocolate is high (because of the embedded GHGs in the milk content).  Note that the study does not consider broader environmental impacts such as land degradation due to cocoa farming.
 
Key information as follows:
In 2007, Swedes consumed 1.6 kg of crisps, 15.2 kg of chocolate and confectionery, and 87.7 litres of soda per person.The contribution to GHGs of this consumption is approximately 450,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalents.  Estimated GHG  emissions from  total food consumption in Sweden amounts to around 17.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents (based on primary production only). Consumption of snacks and soft drinks therefore accounts for approximately 2.6% of these emissions. The corresponding figures for meat, dairy products and eggs are approx. 35%, 20% and 1% respectively.