A new study has found Ireland is the joint-fifth best country in the world for combating emissions, based on a number of criteria.
Ireland has also been ranked as one of the top 20 most food sustainable nations – out of a total of 67 countries measured in The Food Sustainability Index 2018.
France took the top spot on food sustainability based on its efforts to tackle food waste, promote healthy lifestyles and adopt eco-farming techniques.
Other leaders in the top five on food sustainability include: the Netherlands; Canada; Finland; and Japan.
Under the ‘Air (Greenhouse Gas [GHG] Emissions)’ category of the study – which was published this week – Ireland and Israel each scored 95.9 out of 100, putting both countries in fifth position out of the 67 nations involved in the study.
Only Denmark (98.3), the Netherlands (98.0), Austria (97.9) and Germany (96.6) scored higher, according to the findings.
The ‘Air (GHG) Emissions’ figures were a small part of a much more far-reaching study into food sustainability, in which Ireland achieved generally fair results.
Three criteria were used to judge a country’s performance in fighting emissions: agricultural impact on the atmosphere; climate change mitigation; and opportunities for investing in sustainable agriculture.
However, this does not mean that Ireland has low emissions, as explained by Katherine Stewart, public policy consultant at The Economist Intelligence Unit.
Ireland has fairly high GHG emissions; it’s in the middle of the 67 countries, but this is offset by its policies to combat climate change, especially around agriculture, and a favourable investment environment for sustainable agriculture and climate change mitigation.
Stewart added “it is important to note that our GHG emissions indicator has a number of sub-components”.
Lagging Behind On Food waste
However, Ireland’s score on emissions puts it streets ahead of the UK, which only managed a score of 68.5 in the same category.
The emissions category was a subsection of the wider sustainable agriculture category, in which Ireland also put in a fair performance, achieving the ninth highest score – 76.4.
We again outperformed the UK on this front, though by a more slim margin – it scored 61.5 in this category.
Ireland also performed well in the nutritional challenges category – which was judged according to life quality, life expectancy and dietary patterns – coming up at fifth place with a score of 72.1.
The reason we dropped to 18th in the overall survey is down to a disappointing performance in the food loss and waste category, where we only managed a score of 64.4 – the UK surpassed us considerably in this regard, scoring 78.9.