2024-03-29T12:21:02Zhttp://buleria.unileon.es/oai/requestoai:buleria.unileon.es:10612/151232023-10-23T10:36:50Zcom_10612_17col_10612_18
Assessment of the diet-environment-health-cost quadrilemma in public school canteens. an LCA case study in Galicia (Spain)
Simon, Xavier
Copena, Damián
Pérez Neira, David
Economia Aplicada
Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales
Economía
Dietary change
Organic food
Vegetarian diet
Monetary cost
Nutritional quality
Public policies
[EN] The role of policies and public school canteens as drivers of sustainable and healthy diets is increasingly becoming the center of attention of academics and policy-makers alike. This work therefore aims to assess the environmental, economic and nutritional quality dimensions of the menus consumed across the Local Network of School Canteens in the municipality of Ames (Galicia, Spain). It additionally performs different scenarios to evaluate the effects on the environment-cost-nutritional quality trilemma of implementing two major dietary changes in these menus: introducing more organic products, and shifting toward a more plant-based consumption pattern. To this end, this study considers the following indicators: a) those obtained from an energy and carbon life cycle assessment of the school menus (cradle-to-grave approach), mainly the cumulative energy demand (CED) and the carbon footprint (CF), complemented by some energy efficiency indicators; b) the total cost (TC) of the menus, obtained from their life cycle cost assessment (cradle-to-fork approach); and c) the nutritional quality of the menus, calculated and assessed based on the nutrient rich diet index (NRD 9.3). The CED, CF, TC, and NRD 9.3 index of a daily meal at school canteens are, respectively, estimated at 18.87 MJ, 1.30 kg CO2-eq, EUR 4.65, and 278 per meal. The consumption of animal products and labor (for food preparation) are identified, respectively, as the main environmental impact and economic cost of the menus. The results of our research show how implementing changes in consumption habits toward a more vegetarian diet in school menus makes it possible to include organic products to generate the most positive effects in terms of the environment and nutrition without incurring in cost overruns. Our work discusses the main barriers to be overcome and the political actions that must be enforced to advance the procurement of more sustainable and healthy public food.
SI
Publicación en abierto financiada por el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Castilla y León (BUCLE), con cargo al Programa Operativo 2014ES16RFOP009 FEDER 2014-2020 DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN, Actuación:20007-CL - Apoyo Consorcio BUCLE
2022
2022-09-19T12:29:59Z
2022-09-19T12:29:59Z
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Simon, X., Copena, D., & Pérez-Neira, D. (2022). Assessment of the diet-environment-health-cost quadrilemma in public school canteens. an LCA case study in Galicia (Spain). Environment, Development and Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/S10668-022-02578-Y
1387-585X
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-022-02578-y
http://hdl.handle.net/10612/15123
10.1007/s10668-022-02578-y
1573-2975
eng
Atribución 4.0 Internacional
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Springer