Vegetables, berries, fruits, plant proteins biggest responsibility effects of the product group

Various plant-based products should be increasingly incorporated into diets for both health-related and environmental reasons.

As for all food production, the most significant environmental impacts of vegetable production include eutrophying emissions, greenhouse gas emissions and the water footprint. In addition, production can have impacts on biodiversity, especially when tropical forests of high biodiversity are cleared for crop cultivation. Furthermore, plant-based products can contain significant amounts of pesticide residues, and in intensive production areas, the impacts of pesticides may be evident in soil and water systems.

The aforementioned environmental impacts vary for different products and product groups, and also depending on where the production is located and how the production is carried out in practice. Open-field cultivation, greenhouse cultivation and wild-harvested berries or mushrooms have very different environmental impacts.

Natural products typically have the lowest emissions among food products in terms of climate emissions and eutrophication. Among carbohydrate sources and side dishes, potatoes are an environmentally friendly choice.

The growing demand for specific globally cultivated products can sometimes lead to the clearing of a significant amount of rainforests, for example, to make way for new agricultural land, which can significantly increase the environmental impacts. Avocados and palm oil are good examples of this.

By optimising the use of production inputs (e.g. liming, fertilisation and pesticides) and promoting soil fertility and carbon sequestration in the soil, crop yields remain high while the environmental impacts are reduced.