How food gets to our plates and what happens afterwards, connects many issues of concern, including health, biodiversity, climate change, livelihoods, and more. This chapter, and associated resources, provides an entry point into ‘food systems’ thinking and the multifaceted set of issues that are connected through food. It provides a foundation for the wider set of ideas and complexities that are explored in the other chapters of Foodsource.

Emissions resulting from the many activities involved in food systems, account for a substantial portion of all human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and, as such, contribute to climate change. A major challenge for the sustainability of food systems is, therefore to figure out how its contribution to GHGs can be reduced. If we are to be able to address and mitigate food systems’ contributions to climate change, it is important to understand where and how the greenhouse gas emissions arise across the whole food system. Also important, is to understand how different ways of organising parts of the food system, can result in differing levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Food systems use large amounts of natural resources and have significant environmental impacts; so what can we do to make them more sustainable? This chapter provides an accessible primer on the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology