Rebound effects of food waste prevention: Environmental impacts

Despite the environmental benefits of prevention are widely acknowledged, life cycle assessments usually do not account for rebound effects, the inclusion of which may cancel out the expected environmental savings. Rebound effects are understood as the re-spending of accrued monetary savings, determined by food waste prevention initiatives, either on the same product (direct effects - food) or on other products and/or services (indirect – non-food) including economy-wide effects (macroeconomic rebound effects). Macroeconomic rebound effects were quantified by means of the global equilibrium model Fidelio and were then converted into environmental impacts by performing an environmentally extended input-output analysis based on the assessment method Environmental Footprint 3.0. From an environmental and an economic perspective, it was found that food waste prevention initiatives across the entire food supply chain were beneficial, but efforts targeting households should be prioritised as the largest potential savings were obtained at this stage. Prevention initiatives implemented at households incurred in potential savings of up to 1 t CO2-eq. t-1, which was reduced to a potential saving of 0.6 t CO2-eq. t-1, corresponding to a 38% decrease, when accounting for macroeconomic rebound effects. Finally, our results highlighted the importance of accounting for adjustment costs.

ALBIZZATI Paola Federica;  ROCCHI Paola;  CAI Mattia;  TONINI Davide;  ASTRUP Thomas Fruergaard; 

2022-09-15

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC127841

0956-053X (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956053X22004287,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC127841,   

10.1016/j.wasman.2022.08.020 (online),