Green Six Sigma

Appendix 1Carbon Footprint Factsheet

Carbon Footprint

‘A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product.’ It is calculated by summing the emissions resulting from every stage of a product or service's lifetime (material production, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life). Throughout a product's lifetime, or life cycle, different greenhouse gases GHGs may be emitted, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O), each with a greater or lesser ability to trap heat in the atmosphere. These differences are accounted for by calculating the global warming potential (GWP) of each gas in units of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO₂e), giving carbon footprints a single unit for easy comparison.

Sources of Emissions

FOOD

• Food accounts for 10–30% of a household's carbon footprint, typically a higher portion in lower-income households. Production accounts for 68% of food emissions, while transportation accounts for 5%.
• Food production emissions consist mainly of CO₂, N₂O and CH₄, which result primarily from agricultural practices.
• Meat products have larger carbon footprints per calorie than grain or vegetable products because of the inefficient transformation of plant energy to animal energy, and are due to the methane released from manure management and enteric fermentation in ruminants.
• Ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats produced 178 million metric tons CO₂e of enteric ...