Introduction of Food study Group, The Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan

Abstract

The Food Study Group (FSG), a voluntary-based study group in The Institute of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan, has carried out research and surveys since 2004 to identify the possible directions to sustainable food consumption and production. The members of FSG are from academia, national research institutes, private research institutes, and private food enterprises. FSG had mainly two tasks: (1) life cycle inventory analysis on food products and meals; and (2) determine food values to develop a sustainability indicator for agro-food consumption and production. For the first task, FSG evaluated lifecycle CO₂ emission for various agro-food products including grains, meat, and vegetables, and for five different meals that consist of those products as ingredients. A hybrid approach of process LCA and I-O analysis was adopted. The result suggested that the CO₂ emissions per kg-product for high protein products (meat, dairy, and fish) tend to be high, followed by high carbohydrate products (rice and wheat). With regard to cooking, boiling and steaming tend to emit more CO₂ than stir-frying and deep-frying due to their longer cooking time. For the second task, FSG adopted the concept of eco-efficiency, that is evaluated by comparing a concerning product's service value with its environmental loads. We decided to take life cycle CO₂ emission as a representative to environmental load. For product value, we discussed the definition, criteria, and the method to quantify the value of a meal. Further research is underway to improve the method by adopting weighting via consumer survey and aggregation to a single index.