Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to explore and estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the public consumption in Gothenburg. The emissions will be presented per citizen.

Purpose: research questions 1. How large are the emissions from public consumption within Gothenburg? 2. Which amount of emissions are the consumption of food and public transportation in the public sector responsible for? 3. Are there other important public activities generating emissions? 4. What are the potentials to reduce climate impact from public food consumption and public transportation consumption until 2030?

Background: consumption A complement to the production perspective. Two types of consumption – Private: what private people spend money on e.g. housing, travelling, food. – Public: activities provided by the public sector e.g. Schools, hospitals, military, public transportation.

Background: consumption Definition of public consumption in the thesis: – the entire running costs and investment costs for activities provided by public actors are considered as public consumption.

Background: consumption Swedish EPA has estimated the Swedish consumption to be responsible for 10 ton CO2-eq/person. – 8 tons are from private consumption. – ”The rest”, 2 tons, are from public consumption. Relatively good knowledge about the private consumption, but the public is rather unknown. The goal in the municipality of Gothenburg is to have emissions under 1,9 ton CO2-eq per person and year in 2050.

Background: Public actors The municipality of Gothenburg The county council of Västra Götalandsregionen (VGR) The Swedish state The consumption from VGR and the state is allocated to Gothenburg.

Method: top-down Combining economic expenditures from the actors with emission intensities to estimate total emissions. Emission intensities are from Swedish Input-Output data (SCB).

Result: top-down

Method: Bottom-up Estimate emissions from public food consumption. – Looking at actual consumption of food and combine with emission data from studies (LCA etc). – Potentials for lowering the emissions in 2030.

Method: Bottom-up - Food No records for actual consumed food for public actors. Alternative estimation by using a report about climate impact from typical school meals. 19 million meals per year are served in the municipality of Gothenburg. Estimating total emissions and potentials for lowering the emissions in 2030.

Method: Bottom-up – Food 8 standard meals and 3 vegetarian dishes. – Used to estimate a mean dish. 6/7 Standard and 1/7 vegetarian.

Method: Bottom-up – Food Assumptions: – Potentials were estimated by using estimated reductions from another study. – The consumption of food was assumed to increase together with the population increase, thus being constant per person.

Result: Public food consumption 0,053 ton/person is equal to 8,4 % of the municipality of Gothenburg’s total top-down emissions. Possible reductions of %

Discussion: top-down 1,79 ton CO2 per person is smaller than the EPA’s 2 tons. This thesis is using a broader def. of public consumption. Robust method, using emission intensities from actual Swedish consumption Not good to use: as a benchmarking tool from year to year in this scale: when activities are conducted radically different than the Swedish mean. But the goal is to get under a total of 2 tons per person and year in 2050, including ALL consumption.

Discussion: bottom-up Public food consumption – Favourable to use actual food consumption while estimating emissions. – But the emissions are estimated from typical school dishes within the region. – The potentials are from a study which estimate potentials from average consumption, and not a school dish.

Conclusions: Further work Try to cover emissions from all public consumption (e.g. cement) by using a bottom-up perspective. Start keeping records of relevant purchases, like meat, rice and other emission generating goods. Good would be to keep record of all purchased public food. Start to report emissions from a consumption perspective, as a complement to the production perspective, in the environmental reports. This is important to look at if the emissions are supposed to be fair according the goal of Gothenburg.

Thank you!