Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment
Achieving a sustainable global food chain is becoming particularly acute as modern Western diets are adopted in a growing number of countries and cultures around the world. Understanding the consequences that this shift has on health and sustainability is important. This exploratory study is the fir...
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ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2304-8158/10/6/1194/ 2023-08-20T04:06:51+02:00 Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment Friederike Ziegler Katarina Nilsson Nette Levermann Masaana Dorph Bjarne Lyberth Amalie A. Jessen Geneviève Desportes agris 2021-05-25 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10061194 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Food Security and Sustainability https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10061194 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Foods; Volume 10; Issue 6; Pages: 1194 Greenland greenhouse gas emissions hunting life cycle assessment livestock seal Text 2021 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10061194 2023-08-01T01:48:07Z Achieving a sustainable global food chain is becoming particularly acute as modern Western diets are adopted in a growing number of countries and cultures around the world. Understanding the consequences that this shift has on health and sustainability is important. This exploratory study is the first to apply the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to analyze the sustainability implication of ongoing dietary shifts in Greenland, where locally hunted seal meat is increasingly being replaced by imported livestock products, primarily pig and poultry produced in Denmark. This dietary shift, indirectly driven by international trade bans such as the EU seal product ban, has sustainability implications. To inform and support more comprehensive analyses and policy discussions, this paper explores the sustainability of these parallel Greenlandic food supply chains. A quantitative comparison of the greenhouse gas emissions of Greenlandic hunted seal and Danish pig and poultry is complemented by a qualitative discussion of nutrition, cultural food preferences, animal welfare, and the use of land, pesticides and antibiotics. Although the variability in the life cycle inventory data collected from Greenlandic hunters was considerable, greenhouse gas emissions of seal meat were consistently lower than those of imported livestock products. Emissions of the latter are dominated by biogenic emissions from feed production and manure management, while these are absent for seal meat, whose emissions instead are dominated by fossil fuel use. The implications of these results for sustainable national food policies in a modern global context as well as important areas for additional research are discussed. Text Greenland greenlandic MDPI Open Access Publishing Greenland Foods 10 6 1194 |
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Greenland greenhouse gas emissions hunting life cycle assessment livestock seal |
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Greenland greenhouse gas emissions hunting life cycle assessment livestock seal Friederike Ziegler Katarina Nilsson Nette Levermann Masaana Dorph Bjarne Lyberth Amalie A. Jessen Geneviève Desportes Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment |
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Greenland greenhouse gas emissions hunting life cycle assessment livestock seal |
description |
Achieving a sustainable global food chain is becoming particularly acute as modern Western diets are adopted in a growing number of countries and cultures around the world. Understanding the consequences that this shift has on health and sustainability is important. This exploratory study is the first to apply the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology to analyze the sustainability implication of ongoing dietary shifts in Greenland, where locally hunted seal meat is increasingly being replaced by imported livestock products, primarily pig and poultry produced in Denmark. This dietary shift, indirectly driven by international trade bans such as the EU seal product ban, has sustainability implications. To inform and support more comprehensive analyses and policy discussions, this paper explores the sustainability of these parallel Greenlandic food supply chains. A quantitative comparison of the greenhouse gas emissions of Greenlandic hunted seal and Danish pig and poultry is complemented by a qualitative discussion of nutrition, cultural food preferences, animal welfare, and the use of land, pesticides and antibiotics. Although the variability in the life cycle inventory data collected from Greenlandic hunters was considerable, greenhouse gas emissions of seal meat were consistently lower than those of imported livestock products. Emissions of the latter are dominated by biogenic emissions from feed production and manure management, while these are absent for seal meat, whose emissions instead are dominated by fossil fuel use. The implications of these results for sustainable national food policies in a modern global context as well as important areas for additional research are discussed. |
format |
Text |
author |
Friederike Ziegler Katarina Nilsson Nette Levermann Masaana Dorph Bjarne Lyberth Amalie A. Jessen Geneviève Desportes |
author_facet |
Friederike Ziegler Katarina Nilsson Nette Levermann Masaana Dorph Bjarne Lyberth Amalie A. Jessen Geneviève Desportes |
author_sort |
Friederike Ziegler |
title |
Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment |
title_short |
Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment |
title_full |
Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment |
title_fullStr |
Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment |
title_full_unstemmed |
Local Seal or Imported Meat? Sustainability Evaluation of Food Choices in Greenland, Based on Life Cycle Assessment |
title_sort |
local seal or imported meat? sustainability evaluation of food choices in greenland, based on life cycle assessment |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10061194 |
op_coverage |
agris |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland greenlandic |
genre_facet |
Greenland greenlandic |
op_source |
Foods; Volume 10; Issue 6; Pages: 1194 |
op_relation |
Food Security and Sustainability https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10061194 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10061194 |
container_title |
Foods |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
1194 |
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1774718208926810112 |