A novel composite index for the development of decentralized food production, food loss, and waste management policies: A water-climate-food nexus approach

The United Nations has adopted 17 sustainable development goals for 2030 with environmental sustainability being one of the main pillars. A key point to address this pillar is the proper management of waste generation. Within the broad spectrum of waste types, food loss and waste is produced worldwi...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Hoehn Capracci, Daniel|||0000-0002-9842-7728, Margallo Blanco, María|||0000-0003-0305-5931, Laso Cortabitarte, Jara|||0000-0003-4442-6786, Ruiz Salmón, Israel|||0000-0001-7058-605X, Batlle Bayer, Laura, Bala Gala, Alba, Fullana i Palmer, Pere, Aldaco García, Rubén|||0000-0001-6216-7031
Format: article
Publication Date:2021
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repository:UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/21006
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10902/21006
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Sustainable development goals
Food waste
Composite index
Water-climate-food nexus
Description
Summary:The United Nations has adopted 17 sustainable development goals for 2030 with environmental sustainability being one of the main pillars. A key point to address this pillar is the proper management of waste generation. Within the broad spectrum of waste types, food loss and waste is produced worldwide in large quantities. In this framework, the development of composite indexes is recommended to measure the level of compliance of any context with Sustainable Development Goals. This work presents a novel composite index for food loss and waste generation and management systems, the so-called sustainable development goals-food (SDG-Food) index, aiming to determine the level of compliance of any concrete national, regional, or local context regarding five different sustainable development goals with a water-climate-food nexus thinking. The pilot case study of Spain is presented by analyzing the environmental performance between 2015 and 2040 in a context of (i) compliance and (ii) non-compliance with the Paris Agreement targets. Additionally, four different diets are assessed. Results suggested a numerical index score of 13.79, highlighting the categories of eggs, cereals, meat, and vegetables, and the stages of agricultural production and consumption, as the furthers ones for compliance with the five SDG assessed. Moreover, the scenario of compliance with the Paris agreement targets presented better values for all stages, and a vegan diet was highlighted as the one with the best index score.