Date: 2024-12-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00017221
Sustainable Behavior
It Depends on Multiple Factors
Local Sourcing Is Better: Myth or Not?
For all my adult life, I have always believed in fact based decisions ... specific facts for specific situations, and a deep respect for the reality that places are very different one from another. When it comes to food ... that is the food that comes from agriculture ... weather and soil and seasons are all important facts. This week I am able to buy fantastic tomatoes grown a few miles away ... fantastic because they taste good ... they are in season and were allowed to ripen on the vine ... and they are abundant and the price is reasonable. Much food that has to travel thousands of miles to get to the consumer has no taste because it is harvested before it is time. The metrics about products that are important to me have three components: (1) Social impact (2) Environmental impact and (3) Economic impact. For food social impact has multiple elements ... the good health and wellness from eating the food, the employment associated with food production, etc. The environmental impact also has multiple elements ... the soil damage and/or regeneration associated with growing food (vegetable or animal), the energy consumption (GHG impact) the chemical consumption and associated damage caused by run-off into rivers and oceans, etc. The economic impact is the money cost flows associated with the production and the money price flows associated with getting to the consumer. The massive amount of waste associated with the modern economy means that most of the negatives get bigger while most of the positives get smaller. I should also add that far too much of the modern agricultural and food processing workforce is underpaid, and has dangerous working conditions (including exposure to toxic herbicides and pesticides) and is unfairly exploited by many of the big and powerful corporate actors in the system. My dream is that every product should have key facts about all these things attached to it so that consumers have easy access to the information. With modern IT, people who buy responsibly should be able to get some sort of reward for doing the right thing!
Peter Burgess
The debate on global versus local sourcing always creates food for thought. One problem to start with is trying to determine what is ‘local’. The definition – and whether local sourcing is better than global sourcing – will depend on which stakeholder is answering the question.
Producers strive for global marketing so they can reach out to more customers. At the same time, producers may want to protect their local markets to avoid having to compete against low-price imported products. Market protection agreements at the World Trade Organization tend to favour developed economies and always generate controversy. But is local sourcing always a good idea?
Drawing The Lines
To start with, where do we draw the lines when calling something ‘local’? Are we considering the distance from supplier to consumer, or country borders? Let’s suppose the former, and we limit the distance to 500 km. That would mean a product produced in the Netherlands is local not only on the Dutch market, but also in parts of several other European countries. However, a different product, produced on the West coast of the United States, would not be local for a consumer on the East coast…
Carbon Miles
Carbon miles is a term often used to remind us about the distance the product travels from producer to consumer, for example from farm to plate. Local sourcing can be beneficial to the environment, as it uses less transportation and consequently causes less carbon emission. Total carbon emission, however, depends not just on how far, but also how a product was transported. For example, trains may be more efficient at moving freight than trucks. It depends on a couple of factors, such as the type of fuel.
Carbon miles is a good measure of how much the product has travelled, but it does not account for the total environmental impact of a product. The environmental impact also depends on how the product was produced. Research has shown that it is better, from a greenhouse-gas perspective, for Sweden to buy Spanish tomatoes than locally-grown Swedish tomatoes: the Spanish tomatoes were grown in open fields, while the local ones were grown in greenhouses heated with fossil fuels. In addition, different agricultural methods use different inputs, including pesticides and fertilisers. Fertilisers, especially, result in emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 298 times stronger than CO.
Social-Economic Impacts: The Elephant In The Room
Local sourcing is good for local suppliers. That is particularly important in developing countries, where smaller producers might not be able to compete with low-cost import products. If purchasing managers in countries like Vietnam, India or Brazil decide to purchase from local suppliers instead of importing products, that does not seem like a bad idea. However, a local sourcing policy applied in a developed country will also be good for local producers, while putting jobs in Vietnam, India or Brazil at risk. From this point of view, local sourcing does not necessarily contribute to global income distribution .
In addition, working conditions are often missed in this debate. It makes sense to choose a local supplier if he treats his employees well. At the same time, this choice may contribute to a factory in another country closing, and jobs being lost.
Finally, local supplies can be fairly expensive. During the last decades, we have seen large companies moving purchase orders from one low-cost country to the next one, whenever that would increase their margins or ensure the continuity of their businesses. This trend contradicts with the idea of purchasing a product that is locally produced but costs more. Going for the product that is best for a sustainable global economy would require changing the purchasing policy and mindset at many companies.
Sourcing Locally Is Better: Half-Mythycal
Favouring local sourcing can be a great way to drive positive change – depending on the context, what is considered and who we look at. It is tempting to just look at the aspects of sustainability that local sourcing does benefit: efficiently reducing the carbon miles from transport and optimally using local information to choose between suppliers.
My advice, however, would be to assess the entire life cycle of the product and different aspects of sustainability, including environmental, social, and economic. Only then is possible to analyse the two alternatives – local or global sourcing – to see the trade-offs and to make informed decisions. In addition, regardless of which alternative you choose, I would suggest that companies initiate a continuous inclusive programme, like L’Oréal did. Such a programme dedicates part of purchases to suppliers in less privileged conditions, including marginalised rural communities.