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Introduction to the Principles

1.1 The 10 principles of food industry sustainability

1. Safe and highly nutritious food is accessible and affordable to promote and support a healthy population.
2. Agricultural production beneficially contributes to the environment while efficiently using natural resources and maintaining a healthy climate, land, water, and biodiversity.
3. Use of animals, fish, and seafood in the food supply optimizes their well-being and adds to environmental health.
4. Producer equity and rural economy and development are strengthened with fair and responsible production and sourcing.
5. Safe and suitable working conditions are provided to support employees across the supply chain.
6. Food and ingredient processing generates resources and requires minimal additional inputs and outputs.
7. Packaging effectively protects food and supports the environment without damage and waste.
8. Food and ingredient waste and loss are prevented across the supply chain and what cannot be avoided is put to a positive use.
9. Food and ingredients are efficiently delivered across the supply chain and to the consumer.
10. The supply chain and consumers advance sustainable business and food consumption.

1.2 Principles-practices-potential

Our food system has the potential to produce renewable energy, replenish freshwater and other natural resources, provide an effective means of developing economic capacity, and remove waste through closing resource loops while nourishing the population. Are we achieving this potential? No, we fall short. In fact, we are not able to feed our population and yet cause astounding environmental and social damage.

The Principles of Food Industry Sustainability provide guidance on what to focus on across the supply chain to meet the needs of the population while not contributing to destruction of the environment or society. This book explains these principles through examples of how the supply chain has adopted them and what approaches are working, best practices. In many cases the efforts are moving past reducing detrimental impact and toward the goal of having meaningful and positive effects.

1.3 What is sustainability in the food industry?

The world's population depends on the food industry to produce, process, and deliver safe and nutritious food every day of the year. The demands on the food industry from farm to fork continue to increase. The global population is expected to increase from the current 7 billion to nearly 10 billion by 2050, thereby increasing food needs more than 60% (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research [CGIAR] 2014). Most of the growth will be in developing countries where improvements in standards of living are rapidly shifting the diet from grains, beans, and other legumes to more animal protein. This will increase the demand for meat and poultry about 35% by 2015 (Pew 2008).

Yet, the food system is already contributing to widespread environmental damage and compromised health and livelihoods of our global population. The amount of energy used to produce, process, package, store, and transport food is seven and a half times the amount of energy the food actually provides in return (Heller & Keoleian 2000). The food supply is thereby a significant factor in climate change, water use and pollution, and the reduction of fish stocks in the oceans; at the same time 33% of adults in the United States are obese and over 12% of the world's population is malnourished.

The goal of sustainability in the food industry is to produce and consume food in a way that supports the well-being of generations. The current system clearly falls short and, with the growing demands for food as the population surges, there is the need and the opportunity for the food industry to balance the market needs for food with its environmental and social requirements. The ten principles given in this book provide a framework in which to address these requirements to move toward sustainability in the food industry. Together they aim for a food system that nourishes the population, revitalizes natural resources, enhances economic development, and closes resources loops (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Aim for a sustainable food system.

1.4 The destructive course of the food system

The many activities that go into the global food system can be divided into five major parts: agricultural production, processing and packaging, distribution and marketing, consumption, and waste (see Figure 1.2). Each stage of the food life cycle has unique interactions with the environment and society, causing problems that can be reduced or avoided. This book does not go into the details of these issues but provides a concise summary of the importance and relevance of addressing these concerns. The chapters that follow describe how the supply chain is moving away from the course of destruction toward a system of sustainability that has the potential to thrive economically and benefit both the environment and society.

Figure 1.2 Food life cycle.

The primary environmental and social issues of the current food system are closely related to each other and often influence each other. These include climate change, natural resource depletion and degradation, pollution and toxicity, rural economy and development, and food safety and nutrition (see Figure 1.3). These issues are not theoretical but are creating real challenges that businesses are facing today. One example of a supply chain disruption attributed to climate change was the unusually prolonged drought in Russia over the summer of 2010. By early August, more than one-fifth of Russia's wheat crop had been destroyed and the government banned all grain exports, contributing to wheat price futures reaching their highest point in nearly two years. General Mills was one of many food manufacturers that faced significant price pressure as a result and announced price increases of between 4 and 5% in September 2010 (Reed & Willis).

Figure 1.3 Global environmental and social challenges with the food system.

1.4.1 Climate change

Climate change is the shifting of global temperatures owing to various factors. A leading cause is the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, called greenhouse gases (GHGs), including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and others. GHGs trap the sun's heat in the earth's atmosphere rather than allowing it to escape out to space. The accumulation and increase of GHGs has led to warmer atmospheric temperatures.

The food supply contributes significantly to climate change by being responsible for about 10 to 30% of global GHGs (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] 2010a; and Bellarby et al. 2008). GHGs include the carbon dioxide emitted from electricity production and fuel use, methane from landfills and the production of an increasing number of livestock animals, nitrous oxide from excessive fertilizer use, and other kinds of emissions. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent GHG; however, methane and nitrous oxide are significantly more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the climate (see Table 1.1). Table 1.2 factors in this difference in global warming potential (by putting all GHGs into equivalent terms) and shows how each of these GHGs contributes to the overall emissions from agriculture.

Table 1.1 Global warming potential (GWP) of a sample of GHGs (adapted from IPCC 2007b)

Table 1.2 GHG emissions from food production (adapted from Bellarby et al. 2008)

This abnormal rise in global temperature linked to GHGs has significant consequences. Current projections indicate that if GHG emissions are allowed to continue at their current pace, a temperature increase of 2 to 4.5?°C (3.6 to 8.1?°F) is likely by 2100 (United Nations [UN]...