Carrie Ruxton PhD’s Post

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Award-winning dietitian | Consultant | Board member | Communications | PR | Content delivery

What proportion of #greenhousegasemissions come from agriculture? I've read anything from 14% to 40% depending on the source, but these figures are not accurate for the UK as shown in this new toolkit from Quality Meat Scotland. Why is the UK different from international data? Our temperate climate (basically rain!) and large amount of pasture and less favoured land (80% in Scotland) means that UK farmland is well suited to livestock production. Take a read of the toolkit and let me know what you think. For transparency, I'm proud to serve as a QMS board member. QMS is a public body reporting to the Scottish Government. https://lnkd.in/gzPZvsPw

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Gary Stephenson

Global Regulatory, Sustainability and External Affairs at Devro Plc

1w

Hi Carrie, indeed you highlight one of the biggest challenges in calculating carbon emissions from anywhere. Especially agriculture and meat production. If you just consider emissions you get a different value versus inclusion of the carbon capture elements, such as pastures. When you consider food crops a large amount of vegetable matter either goes to waste or is used as ruminant fodder. In trying to gain a global value we lose local reality. Scope 3 carbon is as much about agreement on allocation of proportion as science. We have some interesting challenges ahead, especially when it comes to carbon labelling of food.

Tom Sanders DSc, PhD, BSc, FAFN, FHEA, FRSM

emeritus Professor of Nutrition & Dietetics at King's College London

1w

Not included is the tranport and food products imported into the UK. This is sizable as around ovef half the food consumed is imported. You also need to consider the cold chain cost of food which can be substantial.

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