What is this? An ongoing exploration by me, Amanda Knudsen, a data analyst and PM with an insatiable curiosity about the relationship between food and sustainability. I'm creating this GitHub repository to continue exploration of the dozens of publicly available datasets I encountered in the early stages of discovery and pre-processing for a data analytics and visualization project I published in late Summer 2021.
How did it start? I started this data exploration while enrolled in a data analytics certification program. I prepared, explored, analyzed and visualized data with Python using Jupyter Notebook and Tableau, where I published an interactive data narrative to Tableau public. The goal: to explore the lifecycle of food production and consumption by looking at the stages and sources of global GHGs over time, across product types and production systems, and through data storytelling and data analysis present insights and accessible opportunities —the 'low hanging fruit'— to combat climate change through reducing emissions and expanding sustainability across the lifecycle of our global food systems.
- Interactive data narrative on Tableau public, Low Hanging Fruit: Sustainable Food Opportunities to Combat Climate Change, explores the data and opportunities for sustainable alternatives to our current global food system
- Python 3 Jupyter Notebook uploaded to GitHub and posted to Kaggle in a public IPython Notebook and public datasets
Background I started and completed my initial project on food emissions in order to showcase my skills and capabilities as a certified data analyst using Python and Tableau, and in order to produce a compelling data narrative and all the learning, practice, and exploration. I chose the topic and datasets as a result of my personal interest and curiosity. For me, I knew I wanted to explore something that everyone could potentially relate to — after all, everyone must eat and everyone must deal with our changing climate. I'd read about how GHG emissions from our global food system (from land to landfill) are responsible for around one quarter to one third (25% to 33%) of global GHG emissions. I wanted to understand how and why such a significant proportion of global GHGs are emitted through the process of food production and consumption, and I wanted to analyze the data, make connections, and create a data narrative with analysis and visualization.
Essentially, I sought to explore the source and scale of GHGs emitted throughout our global food systems. Throughout the stages of research and data analysis in Summer 2021, I realized that I would need to leave out a lot of fascinating data — which is what led me to creating this repository here on GitHub, to share resources and allow for a place to continue practicing my skills and adding additional chapters to the data narrative about GHGs across global food systems.
When I started this project, the enormity of the contributions of the food system to global emissions, the complexity and variety of stakeholders, the major implications for global warming and climate change, the interaction with food security, food prices, access to essential nutritents, combined with the relatively dense language of climate science, policy research, and agri-business, seemed to both overwhelm and oversimplify. My goal was and remains to explore the data and contribute insights storytelling through data analysis, and hopefully contributing to a broader understanding about the implications and impact, and how we as individuals, communities, consumers, producers, governments, and others across the food value chain can contribute to positive change toward sustainable food systems.
Context
Contemporary consumers want to know how the foods they eat contribute to their environmental footprint. Across the global food system, businesses know there is value and urgency in creating more sustainable systems with reduced GHGs. Taxes and caps on emissions, increasing temperatures, diminishing availability of land and quality of soil are increasingly a reality for stakeholders across the food value chain.
- GHG emissions from human activities are the main driver of climate change and food systems are a significant contributor with one third (~34%) of total global GHG emissions from human activities coming from food systems each year, based on multiple U.N.-backed studies released in 2021. via United Nations, FAO
- The impacts of climate change such as increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are already affecting the security of food systems and negative impacts are expected to increase based on future projected climate change, resulting in further declines of crop yields and increasingly higher food prices. via IPCC
- As of May 2021, 70% of U.S. adults now favor taxing corporations based on their emissions, among other proposals aimed at reducing the effects of climate change that majorities of Americans support. via Pew Research Center
Data sources
- EDGAR-FOOD global food system GHG emissions from 1990-2015
- Our World in Data environmental impacts of foods and original source article and supplementary dataset published in Science
- GLEAM emissions data from Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM) from the U.N. FAO