ENVIMATfood model
What results does ENVIMATfood produce?
ENVIMATfood includes the product groups and industries of the ENVIMAT model, but the industries, product groups and consumption related to the food system have been expanded to be significantly more detailed (agriculture, fisheries and hunting, collection of natural products for food, food and beverage industry, food service industry, household final consumption and imports and exports). In ENVIMATfood, primary production is divided into 15 industries, fisheries into 4 industries, and the food and beverage industry into 50 industries. There are 500 different food-related product groups in the model.
Why was the ENVIMATfood model developed?
The ENVIMATfood model addresses the need to understand the environmental and economic impacts of the Finnish food system from both consumption and production perspectives. The model produces mutually comparable life cycle environmental impact coefficients, as its core structure remains unchanged, and the calculation of environmental impacts is carried out by linking industry- and/or product group-specific data, such as the use of fuels and energy, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient loads, water use, and biodiversity.
The model also provides information on how much of the food system's environmental impacts contribute to the total environmental impact of Finland's national economy in the various impact categories described above. Additionally, economic and environmental impacts can be examined by industry and compared with each other.
One of the model's objectives is to produce environmental impact coefficients for foods in the FINELI composition database maintained by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), allowing for the simultaneous examination of the environmental impacts and nutritional value of different foods and diets.
How does the model describe the Finnish food system?
The ENVIMATfood model includes all field parcels and describes the crops grown on them (including fallows) in a given year. The field parcels are also linked to information on their soil types for calculating greenhouse gas emissions from land use. The model's background data also include information on farms and their livestock numbers for the same year.
The model describes the following information:
- The yield from primary production, livestock products, fish catch from professional and recreational fishing, game catch, and wild berries and mushrooms collected for food;
- The use of the yield, catch, and products from primary production in the food and beverage industry, as well as direct final use by households and exports;
- Products manufactured in the food and beverage industry and the raw materials used in their production;
- The supply of restaurant and catering services from the industries providing them, such as restaurant and accommodation services, water transport, and the public sector, and the raw materials used in these services. The model also includes food waste from retail.
What information does the model’s background data include?
ENVIMATfood's background material includes a large amount of industry-specific data collected from public statistics, such as Natural Resources Institute Finland's agriculture, fish and game statistics and Statistics Finland's input-output data, materials and supplies data, and commodities data.
Site-specific information on the use of raw materials, product manufacturing, energy, fuel and water use, as well as the quantities and quality of wastewater has been collected from environmental permits and their monitoring material, responsibility reports, theses and other public documents, as well as directly from companies.
The coverage of the data is high, for example in the food and beverage industry, the data include nearly 75% of all food industry companies or establishments measured by turnover. The description of the accommodation and restaurant sector and public sector food services in the model is also based on actual, precise procurement data received from operators.
In terms of exports and imports, ENVIMATfood is based on detailed statistics from Finnish Customs. The calculation of the environmental impacts of imports is based on the use of EXIOBASE, a model describing the environmental impacts of international trade.
How do the environmental impact coefficients calculated using the ENVIMATfood model differ from those calculated with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)?
Both ENVIMATfood and LCA produce life cycle environmental impact coefficients. Both methods describe the production inputs required to manufacture a product in the production value chain.
For example, producing one litre of milk purchased from a retail store has required energy, fuel, water, and raw materials at the dairy, farms, retail, logistics, and even in the fertilizer industry.
The ENVIMATfood model is based on the average product groups and industries on the market. In life cycle assessment, the starting point is typically a specific product or manufacturer, such as a particular dairy company or its specific product. In this case, the calculation is based on the value chain of the specific company.
ENVIMATfood includes the entire national economy of Finland and the products and emissions produced within it. Total production and emissions are allocated to industries and/or product groups. Therefore, the model does not have a system boundary, as in life cycle assessment, where the life cycle of a product's production is typically "followed" a few steps back, for example, to the production of fertilizers, but not necessarily to the emissions related to the production of raw materials used by the fertilizer industry.
ENVIMATfood also includes land use emissions in their entirety. In life cycle assessment, the system boundary may vary, for example, so that land use emissions are not included in the calculation. Depending on the significance of the case-specific system boundary in life cycle assessment, ENVIMATfood may produce somewhat higher environmental impact coefficients. If, for example, land use emissions are also included in the LCA calculation, the results, i.e., the magnitude of the environmental impact coefficients, should be in principle close to each other.