Purpose

• The purpose of this thesis is to explore and estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the public consumption in Gothenburg.

• The emissions will be presented per citizen.

Purpose: research questions

• 1. How large are the emissions from public consumption within Gothenburg?

• 2. Which amount of emissions are the consumption of food and public transportation in the public sector responsible for?

• 3. Are there other important public activities generating emissions?

• 4. What are the potentials to reduce climate impact from public food consumption and public transportation consumption until 2030?

Background: consumption

• A complement to the production perspective.

• Two types of consumption– Private: what private people spend money on e.g.

housing, travelling, food.

– Public: activities provided by the public sector e.g. Schools, hospitals, military, public transportation.

Background: consumption

• Definition of public consumption in the thesis:– the entire running costs and investment costs for

activities provided by public actors are considered as public consumption.

Background: consumption

• Swedish EPA has estimated the Swedish consumption to be responsible for 10 ton CO2-eq/person.– 8 tons are from private consumption.– ”The rest”, 2 tons, are from public consumption.

• Relatively good knowledge about the private consumption, but the public is rather unknown.

• The goal in the municipality of Gothenburg is to have emissions under 1,9 ton CO2-eq per person and year in 2050.

Background: Public actors

• The municipality of Gothenburg• The county council of Västra

Götalandsregionen (VGR)• The Swedish state

• The consumption from VGR and the state is allocated to Gothenburg.

Method: top-down• Combining economic expenditures from

the actors with emission intensities to estimate total emissions.

• Emission intensities are from Swedish Input-Output data (SCB).

Result: top-down

Method: Bottom-up

• Estimate emissions from public food consumption.– Looking at actual consumption of food and combine with

emission data from studies (LCA etc).

– Potentials for lowering the emissions in 2030.

Method: Bottom-up - Food

• No records for actual consumed food for public actors.

• Alternative estimation by using a report about climate impact from typical school meals.

• 19 million meals per year are served in the municipality of Gothenburg.

• Estimating total emissions and potentials for lowering the emissions in 2030.

Method: Bottom-up – Food

• 8 standard meals and 3 vegetarian dishes.– Used to estimate a mean dish. 6/7 Standard and

1/7 vegetarian.

Method: Bottom-up – Food

• Assumptions:– Potentials were estimated by using estimated reductions

from another study.

– The consumption of food was assumed to increase together with the population increase, thus being constant per person.

Result: Public food consumption

•0,053 ton/person is equal to 8,4 % of the municipality of Gothenburg’s total top-down emissions.•Possible reductions of 31-88 %

Discussion: top-down

• 1,79 ton CO2 per person is smaller than the EPA’s 2 tons. This thesis is using a broader def. of public consumption.

• Robust method, using emission intensities from actual Swedish consumption

• Not good to use: as a benchmarking tool from year to year in this scale: when activities are conducted radically different than the Swedish mean.

• But the goal is to get under a total of 2 tons per person and year in 2050, including ALL consumption.

Discussion: bottom-up

• Public food consumption– Favourable to use actual food consumption while

estimating emissions.– But the emissions are estimated from typical

school dishes within the region.– The potentials are from a study which estimate

potentials from average consumption, and not a school dish.

Conclusions: Further work• Try to cover emissions from all public consumption (e.g. cement) by

using a bottom-up perspective.

• Start keeping records of relevant purchases, like meat, rice and other emission generating goods. Good would be to keep record of all purchased public food.

• Start to report emissions from a consumption perspective, as a complement to the production perspective, in the environmental reports. This is important to look at if the emissions are supposed to be fair according the goal of Gothenburg.

Thank you!