Climate Database Facilitating Climate Smart Meal Planning for the Public Sector in Sweden

The climate impact of food consumption corresponds to about 2 tons of CO2 eq. per capita, representing around 25 % of the total consumption-driven climate change impact in Sweden. There are several diverse ongoing trends of food consumption in Sweden, and their primary drivers are environmental and health considerations. The results of a market research carried out by YouGov (2010) indicated that nearly 75 percent of respondents would buy climate-labeled food, and nearly 50 percent of the respondents would be willing to pay a higher price for such a product. The climate impact from meals could be significantly decreased through small changes in recipes by reducing the amount of ingredients with high carbon footprints or substituting them with other ingredients with the same function but lower carbon footprints. By making more climate-conscious choices, e.g. eating more vegetables as well as poultry, egg and seafood instead of red meat, the climate impact per person and year could be reduced by half. Several recent studies suggest that dietary changes can reduce food-related environmental impacts significantly (e.g. Tilman and Clark, 2014; Hallström et al., 2015; Stehfest, 2014; Röös et al., 2015; Bryngelsson et al., 2016). These studies have mainly explored theoretical dietary scenarios, and not what people actually eat; for example, in one study a model-based theoretical diet, which reduced GHGs by 90%, included unrealistic amounts of only seven food items (Macdiarmid, 2012). Still, this information is important when aiming to guide food producers, public authorities and consumers towards more sustainable and healthy options. The national food agency Sweden updated their dietary advice in 2015, which now also takes environmental consideration into account, besides health impact (SLV, 2015).