Contact person
Serina Ahlgren
Forskare
Contact Serina
Food biodiversity database
A new food database is now being launched, with a focus on biodiversity. The biodiversity database functions as a complement to the RISE climate database for food.
Now we can calculate biodiversity impacts!
The link between climate and food production is well documented. For other environmental impact categories and especially biodiversity, there is much less information. Together with Coop Sweden, RISE has now calculated the effect on biodiversity for a large number of foods. The focus is on food consumed in Sweden, which includes both products from Swedish agriculture and imported food. For the first time, there is now a way to calculate the impact on biodiversity of the food we eat.
How can the biodiversity database be used?
The biodiversity database uses include selecting foods and ingredients with positive or low negative impact on biodiversity, finding biodiversity hotspots in the production chain, for consumer information, etc.
The database is openly available, you only need to create an account to access all the data.
There are several challenges
There are several methodological challenges when we calculate biodiversity footprint at the product level. Consider for example the product milk. On the farm, fodder is grown and the animals graze, which can have both a positive and negative impact on biodiversity. Quite often, some feed is also imported from different parts of the world and these effects must also be included. Then there are several other inputs to the farm that also affect biodiversity; electricity production, extraction of mineral fertilizers from mines, extraction of fossil fuels and so on. In other words, it can be very complex to calculate the biodiversity footprint.
In this first version of the Biodiversity Database, we have used best available methods and data. We now have more funding from the research council Formas to continue the development, together with Coop Sweden and the Compass Groups.
If you have questions, you are welcome to contact us at biodiversitetsdatabasen@ri.se
More information
fPDF is a measure of biodiversity. PDF stands for Potentially Disappeared Fraction and describes the potential species loss caused by human land use, compared to a reference situation. Since the PDF results per kilogram of food will be very small (often raised to minus 15), we express the results as femto-PDF (fPDF).
Log in / Create account
To access the database you need to create an account https://www.biodiversitetsdatabasen.se/
Coaching
Do you want to get started with biodiversity calculations? We offer coaching on an hourly basis, you can e.g. get help with the practical aspects of the database, how you can use and interpret the results, or more in-depth knowledge of biodiversity, agriculture and food. Contact us and we can tell you more! biodiversitetsdatabasen@ri.se
