First workshop of the CLIF workshop series: Major environmental impacts of food consumption and production

As part of the CLIF project, corsus is holding a total of five workshops with stakeholders from the target regions of Germany, Thailand, South Africa and Paraguay, NGOs and international LCA experts to discuss the main environmental impacts of food consumption and production.

The first workshop with German non-governmental organisations took place on 22.09.22. Together with representatives from Greenpeace, Global Nature Fund, Bodenseestiftung, ProVeg International, WWF Germany, Agora Agrar and Deutsche Umwelthilfe, corsus discussed the main global and national environmental impacts of food consumption and production. First, the most important environmental impacts from a global perspective were scrutinised. There was consensus that for sustainable food systems, biodiversity loss and climate change in particular are among the most important challenges to be addressed globally. After a short impulse on the results of current studies on environmental impacts of nutrition in Germany, the driving forces were discussed in small groups and the consequences of the main environmental impacts were discussed. After the discussion, the participants voted on which environmental impacts are the most relevant ones associated with nutrition in Germany. Also for Germany, biodiversity loss and climate change are estimated nationally as the most significant environmental impacts associated with food consumption and production.

With the awareness that biodiversity loss and climate change are closely linked, everyone agreed that both globally and nationally a change towards sustainable nutrition in harmony with planetary boundaries is necessary. Targeted communication of the major environmental impacts caused by the food system is urgently needed to reach as many people as possible.

The aim of ‘CLIF’ is to design an internationally usable communication tool to inform consumers about the sustainability impacts of food. In the project, led by WWF Germany, corsus as a project partner identifies relevant environmental impacts of food and develops the method how LCA information can be translated into easily understandable information for the communication tool. For this purpose, workshops and LCA case studies are conducted in Germany (Europe), South Africa (Africa), Thailand (Asia) and Paraguay (South America). The project website provides background information and current news on CLIF. A factsheet and a short PowerPoint presentation are available for download.