Thesis Proposal

Prithvi Mahabaleshwara
Master in Management - 2016-17 Cohort
451480
Introduction: Setting the scene

The time in history that we are currently situated in is of high significance in the context of the planet’s
climatic future as environmental efforts from all over have started to gain consolidated momentum
(Hecht, 2014). The recent Paris Climate Accord event - where leaders from almost all countries in the
world met to pledge their allegiance to the welfare of the planet through various steps and targets that they
set for themselves - can be seen as a manifestation or collective condensing of the growing concerns since
the past decades for the deteriorating environmental health caused by human activities. These steps by the
world leaders is also being reflected by the simultaneous increase in the awareness of the need to consume
sustainably by the consumers as well as the increase in the need for businesses to have environmental
good on their agenda, as a complementary phenomenon (Nielsen, 2015; Hozik, 2016). It is now beginning
to become a common practice to align a business’ set of practices to the UN’s SDGs in order to project an
image of sustainability. Organisations of all shapes and sizes, in all different sectors are jumping on the
bandwagon to make their way of doing business more sustainable, and reduce the negative impact they
are having on the climate.
The food we consume being one of the biggest contributors of climate change, the food industry also has
a big responsibility on its shoulders to scrutinize its practices. In this research, one chunky constituent of
the food industry is picked - the restaurants- to be scrutinized on certain aspects regarding its impact on
climate change.
Locally-sourced, free-range, cage-free, seasonal produce, compost, organic etc have become terms that
are often used in the restaurant business (and also in other food and beverage businesses), and have taken
on the role of bringing in a sustainable/environment-friendly identity to the business. Although some of
these practices may intuitively seem to be sustainable practices inherently better for the environment, the
fact of the matter is that the impact of these practices - in an absolute sense and also in a comparative
sense- can only be known if they are objectively measured. It will be appropriate to mention the fact that
there is an evident widespread of a phenomenon called ‘Greenwashing’, which refers to the practice of
projecting one’s business as being sustainable or as having practices that are not harmful to the
environment, whereas in reality those practices/policies are not of much significance when it comes to
having a positive effect on climate change (Bradley, 2011). Objective measurement indices/frameworks
will make it easier to identify practices which are merely Greenwashing practices adopted by businesses.
Greenhouse gas emissions life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools are one such offering which attempt to do so
in terms of the farm-to-plate carbon dioxide footprint that the food served in the restaurants have. These
tools enable restaurants to be brought into the carbon emission narrative in a more objective manner. The
appropriate usage of these tools in the direction of determining the climatic impact of the business
practices of restaurants and then using that information to improve the practices is being explored in this
research.

Research Question

In what ways can a Greenhouse gas emissions Life Cycle Assessment tool be used to make a restaurant
more sustainable in terms of the food that it serves?

Objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of the information obtained by the LCA tools as a basis for business
decisions to be made in a restaurant, with the aim to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the food that
restaurant serves. These decisions can be broadly categorized into three categories: ​Procurement of
ingredients/produce,
Usage or choice​ of ingredients/produce to make the food, and
Communication​ of environmental impact of meal to consumers.
The multi-dimensional trade-offs in each of these categories will be investigated between the decision to
go with the conventional practices and the practices which are suggested to have a lower carbon footprint,
with the information given by the LCA tools as the basis.

Relevance: LCA tools are one of the ways by which the product of restaurants as a business- meals- can
be broken down and be accounted for in terms of the carbon footprint. It is imperative to evaluate the
usage that these LCA tools have for these businesses in regulating the carbon footprint of their activities
in order for the restaurant businesses to objectively know where they stand in the responsibility spectrum
in terms of environmental impact. It is also important to know what is the cost to value ratio in each
trade-off to opt for the practices which have a lower carbon footprint in order to realistically map and
enable a transition.

Literature Review
Life-cycle assessment tools

Life-cycle assessment tools are provisions/programs which provide carbon footprint or greenhouse gas
emission information associated with a product tracing it throughout its life-cycle. These tools attempt to
account for all the emission that was caused in the production, transportation, storage, and disposal of the
product. These tools breakdown the activities in each of the stages that the product passes through in its
life-cycle from being produced to being consumed to being disposed, into carbon footprint units or
eco-points. These tools are helpful in extending the economic input-output with environmental data, in
order to move towards an environmental GDP for green economy (Frischknecht, Steiner, Jungbluth.
2009). Different LCA tools use different frameworks or models to devise the indices on which the LCA
for the products will be calculated.Many of the LCA tools use extensive databases which are curated
pertaining to the approximate emission of a certain product throughout its life-cycle (Wilberforce, 2010).
These databases are generalizations of the emissions that a certain type of product causes and hence when
these tools are used to ascertain the carbon footprint of a product then the carbon footprint shown is not
for the particular ingredients used in that particular product, but a general idea of the footprint from the
type of ingredients used in that product (Hirayu et al, 2013). There are different LCA tools available today
among which the Carbon Footprint of Products (CFP) program, Eaternity, and PAS 2050 are some
relevant ones for this research.

Eco-labels and labelling

Eco-labels are essentially the labelling used on products which convey some kind of environmental value
that the product adheres to. There can be different attributes/standards a product adheres to that an
Eco-label might be conveying, some of which include Environmentally Degradable, Non-toxic Plastic
Packaging Material, Hazardous Metal-Free Electrical and Electronic Equipment, Biodegradable Cleaning
Agents and Recycled Paper, Vegan, Organic, GMO-Free, locally sourced etc. Eco-labels and their
implications are usually derived from frameworks/models/standards which are set by associations or
organisations which aim to standardize and certify the respective attributes that the corresponding
eco-labels are to convey. GreenSeal, Cleanmetrics, and Nordic Ecolabel are examples of some of the
many groups that offer certifications and eco-labels to products on different aspects which generally have
an impact on the environment. In eco-labels that are used on food products have various methodologies,
quantitative as well as qualitative, by which the attributes are quantified (Leach, Emery, et al. 2016). The
visual representation of the labelling can also vary from being merely descriptive to being a rating system
to being a more detailed comparative benchmarking (Leach, Emery, et al. 2016). These different types of
labelling yeild different types of results in terms of consumer behaviour, in different contexts (Roos.
2013). Eco-labels have been known to influence purchase intention and also the physiological perception
of the product by the consumer. (Sorquist, Haga, et al. 2015; Ramli, 2009).

Relationship between food and climate change, sustainable practices by restaurants and the associated
trade-offs.

Amongst the many different contributors to climate change nutrition, housing and mobility are found to
be the ones which cause the highest proportion of environmental impact (Frischknecht, Steiner,
Jungbluth. 2009). Food we consume is widely considered to be the activities which have one of the
highest carbon footprint. This makes it imperative to bring in the food industry and the restaurant business
into the resposnisbility and accountability loop in order to curb climate change. The current pattern of
food consumption in developed countries exceed the desired level of sustainability by atleast a factor of 4
(Carlson-Kanyama, 1998). When different scenarios and combinations of ingriedients are tested to
construct a meal and then the carbon footprint of each combbination is compared, then there is a stark
difference between meat-heavy meals and plant-heavy meals, and locally produced, organic ingrideints
and other ingridients, clearly implying the climate benefits of changing one’s diet (Stehfest, et al. 2009).
While it is good to know that switching to sustainable practices which have a lower carbon footprint is
essential, from a practical point of view it also has to make business sense for restaurants to adopt such
practices. There exist many trade-off at each stage when it comes to choosing sustainable practices over
conventional practices. There are many instances in which it is evident that many organisations achieve
their business goals while reducing their environmental impact, but there are also many cases where
environmental benefit comes at the expense of the financial health of the businesses (Wu, Pagell. 2010).
A lot of the trade-offs depend on the context of each of the businesses and a lot of uncertainty is involved
as making choices in that setting is dynamic and complex (Wu, Pagell. 2010).

Research Strategy/Methodology

Multiple case-studies with restaurants that use LCA tools already and comparing them with restaurants
which do not use any LCA tools.
LCA tools to be considered are Eaternity, CFP, and Nordic Ecolabel.
Evaluate the effects and usage of the information obtained by the LCA in the broad categories/stages of :
Procurement, Usage, and Communication/Sales.
Conducting interviews with managers and owners that run the above mentioned restaurants to get to know
the multi-dimentional trade-offs that might exist in-order to take decisions that are environment friendly
but also make good business sense for their respective businesses.

Timeline

15th Sept:
Finalize sample pool of restaurants that will participate in the research.
Devise framework to evaluate the usage of the LCA information in each of the planned stages :
Procurement, Usage, and Communication/Sales

30th Sept:
Conduct interviews and start to implement the evaluations in each of the planned stages.

15th Oct:
Start to consolidate collected data.

15th Nov:
Analyze data and start to derive inferences and conclusions.

30th Nov:
Start to prepare for the thesis defense.

References

Hecht, A. 2014. ‘’Past, Present and Future: Urgency of Dealing with Climate Change’’, Atmospheric and
climate sciences.
https://file.scirp.org/pdf/ACS_2014111713453636.pdf
Nielsen, 2015. ‘’GREEN GENERATION: MILLENNIALS SAY SUSTAINABILITY IS A SHOPPING
PRIORITY’’ . Nielsen Global website.
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2015/green-generation-millennials-say-sustainability-is-a-sh
opping-priority.html

Hozik, M. 2016. ‘’Making the Green by Going Green: Increased Demand for Green Products and the
FTC’s Role in a Greener Future’’. Georgetown Environmental Law Review.
https://gelr.org/2016/02/01/making-the-green-by-going-green-increased-demand-for-green-products-and-t
he-ftcs-role-in-a-greener-future-georgetown-environmental-law-review/

Bradley, T.C. 2011. ‘’Likelihood of Eco-Friendly Confusion: Greenwashing and the FTC “Green
Guides”’’. Landslide, Vol.4, No.1.
http://www.coatsandbennett.com/images/pdf/Likelihood-of-Eco-Friendly-Confusion-Greenwashing-and-t
he-FTC-Green-Guides-by-Timothy-Bradley.pdf

Frischknecht R., Steiner R., Jungbluth N. 2009: ‘’The Ecological Scarcity Method – Eco-Factors 2006: A
method for impact assessment in LCA’’. Federal Office for the Environment FOEN, Zürich
https://www.bafu.admin.ch/dam/bafu/en/dokumente/wirtschaft-konsum/uw-
umwelt-wissen/methode_der_oekologischenknappheitoekofaktoren2006.pdf.download.pdf/the_ecological
_scarcitymethodeco-factors2006.pdf

Hirayu, N,. et al. 2013. ‘’Carbon Footprint of Products as a communication tool with consumers’’, Journal
of Life-cycle Assessment.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/lca/9/3/9_221/_pdf

Wilberforce, N,. et al. 2010. ‘’Restaurant and food service Life-cycle Assessment.’’. Journal of Life-cycle
Assessment.
http://www.academia.edu/2420392/Restaurant_and_food_service_life_cycle_assessment_and_developme
nt_of_a_sustainability_standard

Leach, A., Emery, K.A., 2016. ‘’Environmental impact food labels combining carbon, nitrogen, and water
footprints’’. Sciencedirect.
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/environmental-impact-food-labels-combining-carbon-nitrogen-and-
water-footprints

Roos, E., 2013. ‘’Analysing the Carbon Footprint of Food’’. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
http://handelsradet.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2013-Analysing-the-Carbon-Footprint-of-Food.pdf

Sorquist, P., Haga, A., et al. ‘’The green halo: Mechanisms and limits of the eco-label effect’’. Food and
Quality preference.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950329315000312

Ramli, N. 2009. ‘’Awareness of Eco-label in Malaysia’s Green Marketing Initiative’’. International

Carlson-Kanyama, A., 1998. ‘’Climate change and dietary choices — how can emissions of greenhouse
gases from food consumption be reduced?’’. Natural Resources Management, Department of Systems
Ecology, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
http://www.eaternity.org/assets/sci-pub/carlsson-kanyama1998.pdf

Stehfest, E., 2009. ‘’Climate benefits of changing diet’’. Earth System Science and Climate Change
Group, Wageningen University Research.
http://www.eaternity.org/assets/sci-pub/stehfest2009.pdf

Wu, Z., Pagell, M., 2010. ‘’Balancing priorities: Decision making in sustainable supply chain
management.’’. Journal of Operations Management.
https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/elsevier/balancing-priorities-decision-making-in-sustainable-supply-chain-
1RU0DDdlLb