Carbon Footprints and Food Systems :
Do Current Accounting Methodologies Disadvantage Developing Countries?

Carbon accounting and labeling are new
instruments of supply chain management and, in some cases,
of regulation that may affect trade from developing
counties. These instruments are used to analyze and present
information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from supply
chains with the hope that they will help bring about
reductions of GHGs. The designers of these schemes are
caught in a dilemma: on one hand they have to respond to
policy and corporate agendas to create new ways of
responding to climate change challenges, while on the other
they rely on very rudimentary knowledge about the actual GHG
emissions emanating from the varied production systems that
occur around the globe. This is because the underlying
science of GHG emissions from agricultural systems is only
partially developed; this is particularly true for supply
chains that include activities in developing countries
(Edwards-Jones et al., 2009). As a result of the pressures
placed on designers and users of carbon accounting and
labeling instruments, who are predominantly based in
industrialized countries, there is a risk that carbon
accounting and labeling instruments will not adequately
represent production systems in developing countries. This
report seeks to examine the potential for emerging carbon
accounting and labeling schemes to accurately represent the
production systems in developing countries. In order to
achieve this it includes analyses of typical problems that
may occur if the characteristics of developing
countries' production systems are not taken into
account properly. By doing this, the report provides
relevant and necessary scientific data that illustrate
potential problem areas that, if not addressed, may lead to
developing-country carbon efficiencies not being given
proper credit.