Version 1
: Received: 17 April 2024 / Approved: 18 April 2024 / Online: 18 April 2024 (14:04:22 CEST)
How to cite:
Tang, M.; Miri, T.; Soltani, F.; Onyeaka, H.; Al-Sharify, Z.T. Plant-Powered Plates: A Life Cycle Assessment of Plant-Based Meats in Tackling Climate Change. Preprints2024, 2024041262. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1262.v1
Tang, M.; Miri, T.; Soltani, F.; Onyeaka, H.; Al-Sharify, Z.T. Plant-Powered Plates: A Life Cycle Assessment of Plant-Based Meats in Tackling Climate Change. Preprints 2024, 2024041262. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1262.v1
Tang, M.; Miri, T.; Soltani, F.; Onyeaka, H.; Al-Sharify, Z.T. Plant-Powered Plates: A Life Cycle Assessment of Plant-Based Meats in Tackling Climate Change. Preprints2024, 2024041262. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1262.v1
APA Style
Tang, M., Miri, T., Soltani, F., Onyeaka, H., & Al-Sharify, Z.T. (2024). Plant-Powered Plates: A Life Cycle Assessment of Plant-Based Meats in Tackling Climate Change. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1262.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Tang, M., Helen Onyeaka and Zainab T. Al-Sharify. 2024 "Plant-Powered Plates: A Life Cycle Assessment of Plant-Based Meats in Tackling Climate Change" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.1262.v1
Abstract
As the world attempts to decarbonise the food industry and limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, plant-based meat analogues (PBMAs) have emerged as a sustainable alternative to traditional meat. This study implemented a life cycle assessment (LCA) to rigorously compare the environmental impacts of a beef burger (BB), produced with British beef, against a meat analogue (MA) equivalent with a publicly available recipe. For the LCA, a cradle-to-fork system boundary was utilised, alongside a functional unit of a single 100 g burger patty. Results from the LCA revealed that the BB patty had more than double the total environmental impact than the MA equivalent, as well as possessing a global warming impact that was 62% higher. A simple extrapolation illustrated that if the UK population switched from beef to meat analogue patties, 3 million tonnes of CO2e could be saved annually, corresponding to 0.74% of the country’s yearly territorial GHG emissions. Scenario analyses displayed how the environmental impact of the MA patty remained stable regardless of changes in exportation, ingredient origin or soy protein sourcing. Moreover, sensitivity analysis conducted with an alternative characterisation method corroborated initial findings, whilst uncertainty analysis ensured that nearly all conclusions generated from the original comparison were robust. Future studies should conduct peer-reviewed LCAs on PBMA patties with commercial recipes based on other plant-based proteins, as well as fully understanding any potential health implications of long-term PBMA consumption.
Keywords
life cycle assessment; plant-based meat analogue; greenhouse gas emissions; soy protein isolate; beef burger
Subject
Engineering, Chemical Engineering
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
