TY - JOUR
T1 - The carbon footprint of cold chain food flows in the United States
AU - Wang, Junren
AU - Karakoc, Deniz Berfin
AU - Konar, Megan
N1 - This material is based upon work supported by the US Department of Agriculture (‘US Food Flows: a Cold-Chain Network Analysis of Freight Movements to Inform Local and Regional Food Issues’) and the National Science Foundation grant no. CBET-1844773 (‘CAREER: A National Strategy for a Resilient Food Supply Chain’), DEB-1924309 (‘CNH2-L: Feedbacks between Urban Food Security and Rural Agricultural Systems’), BCS-2032065 (‘RAPID: Spatial Resilience of Food Production, Supply Chains, and Security to COVID-19’), and CBET-2115405 (‘SRS RN: Multiscale RECIPES (Resilient, Equitable, and Circular Innovations with Partnership and Education Synergies) for Sustainable Food Systems’). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or Department of Agriculture. All data sources are detailed in table and are publicly available. We gratefully acknowledge these sources, without which this work would not be possible. We are grateful for the constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers and Michelle Miller that strengthened this paper.
PY - 2022/6/1
Y1 - 2022/6/1
N2 - The food system is an important contributor to carbon dioxide (CO
2) emissions. The refrigerated food supply chain is an energy-intensive, nutritious and high-value part of the food system, making it particularly important to consider. In this study, we develop a novel model of cold chain food flows between counties in the United States. Specifically, we estimate truck transport via roadways of meat and prepared foodstuffs for the year 2017. We use the roadway travel distance in our model framework rather than the haversine distance between two locations to improve the estimate for long-haul freight with a temperature-controlled system. This enables us to more accurately calculate the truck fuel consumption and CO
2 emissions related to cold chain food transport. We find that the cold chain transport of meat emitted 8.4 × 10
6 t CO
2 yr
−1 and that of prepared foodstuffs emitted 14.5 × 10
6 t CO
2 yr
−1, which is in line with other studies. Meat has a longer average refrigerated transport distance, resulting in higher transport CO
2 emissions per kg than processed foodstuffs. We also find that CO
2 emissions from cold chain food transport are not projected to significantly increase under the temperatures projected to occur with climate change in 2045. These county-level cold chain food flows could be used to inform infrastructure investment, supply chain decision-making and environmental footprint studies.
AB - The food system is an important contributor to carbon dioxide (CO
2) emissions. The refrigerated food supply chain is an energy-intensive, nutritious and high-value part of the food system, making it particularly important to consider. In this study, we develop a novel model of cold chain food flows between counties in the United States. Specifically, we estimate truck transport via roadways of meat and prepared foodstuffs for the year 2017. We use the roadway travel distance in our model framework rather than the haversine distance between two locations to improve the estimate for long-haul freight with a temperature-controlled system. This enables us to more accurately calculate the truck fuel consumption and CO
2 emissions related to cold chain food transport. We find that the cold chain transport of meat emitted 8.4 × 10
6 t CO
2 yr
−1 and that of prepared foodstuffs emitted 14.5 × 10
6 t CO
2 yr
−1, which is in line with other studies. Meat has a longer average refrigerated transport distance, resulting in higher transport CO
2 emissions per kg than processed foodstuffs. We also find that CO
2 emissions from cold chain food transport are not projected to significantly increase under the temperatures projected to occur with climate change in 2045. These county-level cold chain food flows could be used to inform infrastructure investment, supply chain decision-making and environmental footprint studies.
KW - United States
KW - carbon footprint
KW - cold chain
KW - food flows
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142463933&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85142463933&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1088/2634-4505/ac676d
DO - 10.1088/2634-4505/ac676d
M3 - Article
SN - 2634-4505
VL - 2
JO - Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability
JF - Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability
IS - 2
M1 - 021002
ER -