Climate change mitigation and adaptation in the UK food system

Principal Investigator: Dr Alice Bows
Email  a.bows@manchester.ac.uk  

Flagship team: Dr Carly McLachlan, Grant Campbell, Dr Jhuma Sadhukhan, Dr Patricia Thornley, Dr Sarah Mander, Professor John Barrett, Dr Mirjam Roeder, Clair Gough, Ellie Dawkins, Dr Ruth Wood and Dr Laura Thom.

Click on the video link below to watch team members present an overview of the project http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp7SO2qUbzU

Aim: To develop a series of scenarios relevant to consumption articulating pathways to alternative futures from both an adaptation and mitigation perspective

Objectives: Develop new tools and methods for quantifying the static and dynamic influence of consumers on greenhouse gas emissions

Explore how the provision of some core consumer foods potentially needs to adapt to climate change impacts and how retailers can prepare and respond to changes

Investigate mitigation strategies by considering emission hotspots', adaptation impacts and a range of climate change targets

The project involves three work packages, focusing on distinct areas of research brought together through the development of quantitative and qualitative scenarios.

WP1: Focusing on developing a new scenario tool with a quantitative consumer-based perspective. This work package involves experts from in environmental accounting from the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Tyndall Centre .

WP2: Focusing on how wheat, beef and dairy may need to adapt for future climate change impacts associated with 2°C and 4°C of warming by the end of the century. This work package involves experts on crops and bread from the Satake Centre for Grain Process Engineering and experts in bioenergy from the Tyndall Centre.

WP3: Focusing on the socio-economic pressures within supply chains in mitigating and adaptation to climate change associated with 2°C and 4°C of warming by the end of the century. This work package involves experts on industry and consumer stakeholder perceptions of energy and constructing energy scenarios from the Tyndall Centre.

The project is focusing initially on the wheat and bread supply chain whilst developing the quantitative tools and qualitative methods required for producing contrasting future scenarios in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption and broader food consumption. Once developed, the scenario tool will be applied to beef and diary products.

We have held three stakeholder workshops in London (December 2010, May 2011 and November 2011). Documents and presentations from the workshop can be found in the downloads section to the right. For more information about future outputs from the stakeholder workshops please contact Carly McLachlan via email at c.mclachlan@manchester.ac.uk .