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Carbon Emissions Assessment for UBC Food Services

University of British Columbia. Food Services; University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

In response to the climate emergency, UBC has developed the UBC Climate Action Plan 2030 (CAP 2030) with a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from food systems by 50% by 2030. Our research aims to identify the top 3-5 food product categories with the highest carbon emissions and provide recommendations to reduce carbon emissions. We begin by cleaning and visualizing data from all UBCFS food purchases in 2022. Our results show that “Grocery”, “Dairy”, and “Beverage” product classes are the top three emitters, while “Meat” contributes a relatively small portion of carbon emission. We then develop several regression models, and our results demonstrate that food products in the “Meat”, “Dairy” and “Processed” product classes are the top contributors to carbon emissions. Weight of food purchased is an important factor determining the carbon intensity, which causes the difference between our data visualization and regression analysis results. Finally, we recommend purchasing alternative food products with a lower carbon footprint and we suggest several ways forward for future, more detailed analysis. Our findings offer a starting point for a more nuanced approach to reducing the carbon footprint of food systems, which is vital to achieving UBC’s goal of net-zero operational emissions by 2035. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Report

eng

2023-09-07

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/85827

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/