This is a guest post by my friend Alec Dauncey about New Zealand lamb in UK supermarkets. His calculations show that the transportation costs (in CO2) are negligible compared to production costs and driving to the supermarket.
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- Lamb production - 35.0kg
- Shipping from New Zealand - 0.2kg
- Articulated lorry Liverpool to Morissons - 0.02kg
- Trip to the shop in the car to buy it - 2.0kg
Conclusion: the "foodmiles" are vanishingly irrelevant? A tiny tweak in production emissions on the farm absolutely dwarfs the emissions from shipping it half way around the world?
Transport Sources:
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/
- A van to a farmers market = 0.5 g CO2eq/kg of product/km (Table 7b p27)
- An articulated lorry at = 1.0kg CO2eq/km = 0.1 g/kg/km (Table 7e allowing for average loads etc)
- Large general cargo ship or container ship say 10,000 tonnes and 0.01kg CO2eq/tonne/km = 0.01g/kg/km
- Going to the supermarket to buy a kg of lamb in the car = 200g CO2eq per km. (Tables 6b and c)
So the emissions for bringing a kilo of NZ lamb 20,000 km are 200 grams of CO2eq?
Further emissions of 20 grams will bring a kg of NZ lamb 200 km from the port to Morrisons?
Driving 5km round trip from my home to Morrisons to buy it emits 2000 grams?
Production Sources:
http://www.theecologist.org/
Gives about 35kg of CO2eq per kg of meat product.
UK figures:
http://randd.defra.gov.uk/
Table II Gives about 17kg of CO2eq per kg of carcass. This is similar to the 35kg for product because only about half the sheep carcass makes it to product:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/
Wales vs NZ production:
http://www.hccmpw.org.uk/
Warning this was funded by Hybu Cig Cymru so probably biaised, just as the NZ report it discusses was probably the other way?
Welsh figures - "Emissions per kg of live weight leaving the farm range from 9.8 to 37.0 kg CO2 equivalents kg-1, with a median value of 15.3 kg CO2 equivalents kg-1."
