The Making Local Food Work project has published a new report which highlights the role that community food enterprises can play in tackling food related GHG emissions.
Summary as follows:
Until recently, the focus of public and political debate around the contribution food makes to climate change was on transport. However, a succession of life cycle assessments and scientific reviews over the past decade have highlighted that other factors besides transport, make a bigger overall difference to climate change.
Where does this leave community food enterprises? Most were set up for other reasons – social, economic and environmental – rather than to tackle climate change. They are hugely diverse, spanning community-supported agriculture schemes, community shops, farmers’ markets, food co-ops and buying groups. Many have something distinctively local about them – such as shorter supply chains – but none is defined just by that fact. Little of the research on climate change and local food, which mostly looks at the effect of shorter-distance transport on more conventional supply chains, can offer them direct guidance.
This report forms part of an exploratory study commissioned by Making Local Food Work to understand better the role of local and community food enterprises in addressing global environmental issues, focusing on greenhouse gas emissions. It is about making practical sense of the opportunities and challenges facing community food enterprises.
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