IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iaae15/211382.html

Who emits most? The environmental impact of food purchases of French households

Author

Listed:
  • Caillavet, F.
  • Darmon, N.
  • Fadhuile, A.
  • Nichele, V.

Abstract

The environmental impact of food is a major concern for climate change. This paper estimates the CO2 emissions due to food purchases of French households and analyses the disparities between income classes. To combine environment with health concerns, we consider as well the caloric content of foods and normalize CO2 emissions on a daily 2000kcalories basis. Data on French food purchases come from Kantar 1998-2010. Using Life-Cycle-Analysis from Greenext, we obtain CO2equivalent emissions for different food groups. Then we adjust levels of emissions by linear regression on income and age. We find that CO2 emissions of food purchases amount to 3.9kg/day/household. Lowest-income households emit more CO2 compared to richest households (+14.7%), but less on an adjusted 2000kcal basis (-9.6%). In a public policy perspective, richer households should be the first target of diet change since their consumption favours higher CO2 emitting food groups than lower-income households, at caloric level constant.

Suggested Citation

  • Caillavet, F. & Darmon, N. & Fadhuile, A. & Nichele, V., 2015. "Who emits most? The environmental impact of food purchases of French households," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211382, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:211382
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.211382
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/211382/files/Caillavet-Who%20emits%20most%20%20The%20environmental%20impact%20of%20food%20purchases%20of%20French%20households-701.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.211382?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cox, Adam & Collins, Alan & Woods, Lee & Ferguson, Neil, 2012. "A household level environmental Kuznets curve? Some recent evidence on transport emissions and income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 187-189.
    2. Emmanuel Combet & Frédéric Ghersi & Jean-Charles Hourcade & Camille Thubin, 2010. "La fiscalité carbone au risque des enjeux d'équité," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 59-91.
    3. Timothy K.M. Beatty, 2010. "Do the Poor Pay More for Food?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(3), pages 608-621.
    4. Olivier Allais & Patrice Bertail & Véronique Nichèle, 2010. "The Effects of a Fat Tax on French Households' Purchases: A Nutritional Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(1), pages 228-245.
    5. Hannes Egli, 2004. "The environmental Kuznets curve : evidence from time series data for Germany," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 03/28, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    6. Hoolohan, C. & Berners-Lee, M. & McKinstry-West, J. & Hewitt, C.N., 2013. "Mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions embodied in food through realistic consumer choices," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1065-1074.
    7. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    8. Galeotti, Marzio & Lanza, Alessandro & Pauli, Francesco, 2006. "Reassessing the environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 emissions: A robustness exercise," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 152-163, April.
    9. Giovanis, Eleftherios, 2013. "Environmental Kuznets curve: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 602-611.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Caillavet, France & Fadhuile, Adelaide & Nichèle, Véronique, 2014. "Taxing animal foods for sustainability: environmental, nutritional and social perspectives in France," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 182863, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Galeotti, Marzio & Manera, Matteo & Lanza, Alessandro, 2006. "On the Robustness of Robustness Checks of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Climate Change Modelling and Policy Working Papers 12045, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    3. France, Caillavet & Adélaide, Fadhuile & Véronique, Nichèle, 2014. "Taxing Animal Products: Protein Demand under Environmental Pressure and Social Impact in France," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 169974, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Marzio Galeotti, 2007. "Economic Growth And The Quality Of The Environment: Taking Stock," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 427-454, November.
    5. Giovanis, Eleftherios, 2013. "Environmental Kuznets curve: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 602-611.
    6. Galeotti, Marzio & Manera, Matteo & Lanza, Alessandro, 2006. "On the Robustness of Robustness Checks of the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Climate Change Modelling and Policy Working Papers 12045, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    7. Sebri, Maamar, 2009. "La Zone Méditerranéenne Face à la Pollution de L’air : Une Investigation Econométrique [The Mediterranean Zone in front of Air pollution: an Econometric Investigation]," MPRA Paper 32382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. George Halkos & Iacovos Psarianos, 2016. "Exploring the effect of including the environment in the neoclassical growth model," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 18(3), pages 339-358, July.
    9. Badunenko, Oleg & Galeotti, Marzio & Hunt, Lester C., "undated". "Better to grow or better to improve? Measuring environmental efficiency in OECD countries with a Stochastic Environmental Kuznets Frontier," FEEM Working Papers 316226, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    10. Maurizio Lisciandra & Carlo Migliardo, 2017. "An Empirical Study of the Impact of Corruption on Environmental Performance: Evidence from Panel Data," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(2), pages 297-318, October.
    11. Luzzati, T. & Orsini, M., 2009. "Investigating the energy-environmental Kuznets curve," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 291-300.
    12. Martin Neve & Bertrand Hamaide, 2017. "Environmental Kuznets Curve with Adjusted Net Savings as a Trade-Off Between Environment and Development," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 39-58, March.
    13. Dora Almeida & Luísa Carvalho & Paulo Ferreira & Andreia Dionísio & Inzamam Ul Haq, 2024. "Global Dynamics of Environmental Kuznets Curve: A Cross-Correlation Analysis of Income and CO 2 Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-35, October.
    14. Shao, Shuai & Yang, Lili & Yu, Mingbo & Yu, Mingliang, 2011. "Estimation, characteristics, and determinants of energy-related industrial CO2 emissions in Shanghai (China), 1994-2009," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 6476-6494, October.
    15. Sabuj Kumar Mandal & Devleena Chakravarty, 2017. "Role of energy in estimating turning point of Environmental Kuznets Curve: an econometric analysis of the existing studies," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 19(2), pages 387-401, October.
    16. He, Jie & Richard, Patrick, 2010. "Environmental Kuznets curve for CO2 in Canada," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 1083-1093, March.
    17. Nicolli, Francesco & Gilli, Marianna & Vona, Francesco, 2025. "Inequality and climate change: Two problems, one solution?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    18. Marc Audi & Marc Poulin & Khalil Ahmad & Amjad Ali, 2025. "Modeling Disaggregate Globalization to Carbon Emissions in BRICS: A Panel Quantile Regression Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-24, March.
    19. Sohail Farooq & Shabana Parveen & Habib Elahi Sahibzada, 2019. "Impact of Industrialization, Urbanization and Energy Consumption on Environmental Degradation: Evidence from India," Global Economics Review, Humanity Only, vol. 4(2), pages 1-12, June.
    20. Luzzati, Tommaso & Orsini, Marco & Gucciardi, Gianluca, 2018. "A multiscale reassessment of the Environmental Kuznets Curve for energy and CO2 emissions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 612-621.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:211382. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.