It is more a societal change that would be required – however could it be encouraged?
An obvious fast method to reduce CO2 emissions would be to reduce waste from overproduction and spoilage.
This reduces fertiliser use during production (fruit and vegetables) as well as transportation requirements.
Production volumes with less waste may also lead to lower unit costs which would benefit end users, to some extent this was the original Aldi/Lidl model.
One aspect is modern supply chains. – They are possibly already sufficiently optimised to supply only the goods that are needed (or close to it) – however it is a conscious decision by shops to offer a large display of (often perishable) goods.
There may be an opportunity to develop a better understanding of consumption patterns which would be needed, however a benefit could be achieved if we could encourage people to not expect large amounts of perishable goods when shopping and ordering in advance when requiring large quantities
It may be possible to reduce people’s consumptions of certain products if they were made aware of the impact they are having on the environment, even more so if coupled with lower end user prices.
For something like this to work, one would require the cooperation of major supermarkets.
The risk of empty shelves would then need to be coupled with an online platform, app or internal software that would explain why and how to end users (and provide means for ordering larger quantities when needed).
In the same context, it could also be worth analysing the ecological impacts of certain seasonal foods and reduce its availability off season, as this increases the associated ecological footprint.
-> This is a technological solution suggestion to a societal problem, thus I suspect it would not reach a sufficient number of people. In the end, something like this would require societal recognition, rather than technological solutions…
