Tool
/ Guidelines & methodologies
Methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions from food systems
This paper is the first in a series of ongoing and planned efforts to build on current knowledge and develop methodologies for estimating new components of food systems emissions, with a view to disseminate the information in FAOSTAT. It provides a methodology for estimating the GHG emissions associated with historic and current domestic food transport, in an effort to inform countries of the environmental impact of their food distribution systems.
Our efforts respond to the call of the upcoming Food Systems Summit to characterize the role of food and agriculture to accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, they align well with Goal 12 to ensure “sustainable consumption and production patterns’’, specifically Target 12.2, “achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources” and Indicator 12.2.1, which monitors the “material footprint, material footprint per capita, and material footprint per GDP” of different products.