| Abstract [eng] |
One of the directions for the green course is creating an environmentally firendly food system. The main component of such system is food waste reduction, in order to achieve a more sustainable food policy. Medium and large income countries create food waste in usage stage, which means that usually it is thrown out when it is still good to use. Food banks have a huge part in solving this food loss issue. The goal of this work is to evaluate Lithuanian Food Bank environmental impact. Aims: to analyse food supply chain and its environmental impact, to evaluate environmental impact analysis methods, to evaluate Food Bank environmental impact; to offer recomendations on how to best calculate avoided environmental footprint. Environmental footprint (EF) methodology was selected for evaluating environmental footprint and four environmental indicators important for food sector. Total of 44 products, that were collected and distributed by Food Bank in 2020, had their global warming potential, dissipated water, fresh water eutrophication and land use evaluated. The biggest impact on global warming, after analyzing all product groups, had dairy products, they created 41,6% of all global warming potential, animal based proteins were second with 24,2 %. The biggest impact on dissipated water had grain and baked goods - 39%, fruits and vegetables 28,12 %. The most significant impact on fresh water eutrophication had animal based proteins, making the total of 40,37% of the total impact; grains and baked goods had 22,79%. The largest impact on land use came from fruits and vegetables 74,81%. Avoided methane was also evaluated to be total of 13,464v t CO2eq. |
