The DOI matches its Crossref record; 103 of the 103 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers
Abstract
Food's environmental impacts are created by millions of diverse producers. To identify solutions that are effective under this heterogeneity, we consolidated data covering five environmental indicators; 38,700 farms; and 1600 processors, packaging types, and retailers. Impact can vary 50-fold among producers of the same product, creating substantial mitigation opportunities. However, mitigation is complicated by trade-offs, multiple ways for producers to achieve low impacts, and interactions throughout the supply chain. Producers have limits on how far they can reduce impacts. Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change. Cumulatively, our findings support an approach where producers monitor their own impacts, flexibly meet environmental targets by choosing from multiple practices, and communicate their impacts to consumers.
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In the citing paper
“Most previous studies on sustainable meat have examined a limited range of aspects (e.g., Clark and Tilman 2017; Poore and Nemecek 2018)”
From Delivering “less but better” meat in practice—a case study of a farm in agroecological transition (2022) · cites this paper as Poore and Nemecek 2018
In the citing paper
“agricultural production-consumption cycle (including agricultural and food waste generation) contribute significant to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of about one-third annually which is a significant contribution for a single sector (3).”
From Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Banana Peel Briquetting (2024) · cites this paper as [3]
In the citing paper
“Algae also demonstrate superior land efficiency over several plant-based sources, with nuts requiring 7.9 m2, pulses 7.3 m2, grains 4.6 m2, and peas 3.4 m2 of land per kg of protein [10].”
From Navigating the potential of algal peptides: health effects, market applications, and scientific challenges (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“In terms of land-use efficiency, algal proteins require substantially less land than both animal- and plant-derived protein sources.”
From Navigating the potential of algal peptides: health effects, market applications, and scientific challenges (2026) · cites this paper as [10]
In the citing paper
“Existing global comparisons of pasture-finished and grain-finished systems are incomplete as they do not account for both carbon opportunity cost and soil carbon sequestration.”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
In the citing paper
“Reviews and meta-analyses of these studies conclude that pasture-finished systems have higher average production emissions [4, 6, 7].”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
In the citing paper
“Most life-cycle assessments comparing the carbon footprint of beef production systems have been limited to production emissions.”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
In the citing paper
“Recent meta-analyses show that pasture-finished systems have higher land-use intensity (measured as area per unit production) on average, since the amount of pasture needed in the finishing stage of pasture-finished cattle is much larger than the amount of cropland needed to provide grain for the finishing stage of grain-finished cattle [4, 6].”
From Carbon opportunity cost increases carbon footprint advantage of grain-finished beef (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
In the citing paper
“with 4.2 Gt CO2-eq year−1 from enteric fermentation, manure and pasture management, and fuel use in livestock production, 3.6 Gt CO2-eq year−1 from synthetic N fertilizer application and crop production for human and animal food, and 3.3 Gt CO2-eq year−1 from changes in land use for crop-livestock production systems.114”
From Technologies and perspectives for achieving carbon neutrality (2021) · cites this paper as [114]
Citations
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Cited by
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Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions
Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Tubiello, F. N., & Leip, A. (2021) · Nature Food · doi:10.1038/s43016-021-00225-9 · Cited by 3,190
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Clark, M., Domingo, N. G. G., Colgan, K. K., Thakrar, S. K., Tilman, D. G., Lynch, J., Azevedo, I. L., & Hill, J. (2020) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aba7357 · Cited by 1,233
Metadata
- Authors
- Poore, J., & Nemecek, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Agroscope (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Poore, J.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2018-06
- Volume
- 360
- Issue
- 6392
- Pages
- 987-992
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2806569362
- Cited by
- 6,085
- References
- 102
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1005 · 2025: 1069 · 2024: 960 · 2023: 896 · 2022: 808 · 2021: 694 · 2020: 401 · 2019: 204 · 2018: 41
- FWCI
- 253.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Agriculture Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Keywords
- food supply chain, producer heterogeneity, animal products, plant-based diet, dietary change, food packaging, food processors, retail companies, customer communication, environmental objectives
- MeSH terms
- Crop Production, Animals, Animal Feed, Environment, Feeding Behavior, Food, Food Supply, Humans, Aquaculture, Food Packaging, Livestock
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