Carbon Footprint of Tree Nuts Based Consumer Products

This case study shows results of a calculation of carbon footprint (CFP) resulting from the production of nuts added value products for a large consumer market. Nuts consumption is increasing in the world and so is the consumer awareness of the environmental impact of goods, hence the calculation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of food production is of growing importance for producers. Calculation of CO2eq emissions was performed for all stages of the production chain to the final retail point for flour, grains, paste, chocolate covered nuts and spreadable cream produced from almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts grown and transformed in Italy and for peanuts grown in Argentina and transformed in Italy. Data from literature was used to evaluate CFP of raw materials, emissions from transport and packing were calculated using existing models, while emissions deriving from transformation were calculated empirically by multiplying the power of production lines (electrical and/or thermal) by its productivity. All values were reported in kg of CO2 equivalent for each kg of packed product (net weight). Resulting values ranged between 1.2 g of CO2/kg for a 100 g bag of almond to 4.8 g of CO2/kg for the 100 g bag of chocolate covered almond. The calculation procedure can be well used for similar cases of large consumer food productions.