Carbon footprint measures the amount of greenhouse gas emitted into the environment.

Greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon: greenhouse gases trap part of the sun’s rays, making life on earth possible (average temperature of 15°C).

According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), human activities intensify the concentration of greenhouse gases (e.g. CO₂) in the atmosphere trapping the solar radiations to a greater extent. Consequently, the Earth’s temperature is modified; this phenomenon is called climate change. This indicator measures grams of CO₂-eq. (carbon dioxide), the reference unit into which other greenhouse gas emissions are converted.

In the Results section, impacts on the climate change (kg CO₂-eq.) are also presented in kilometers of a traveling car. A factor of 1 kg CO₂-eq. is equal to 3.4 km (source: ecoinvent).

Throughout pork production’s life cycle, water is used for various purposes (irrigation, cleaning and drinking). Part of this water will not return to its drainage basin (natural area that drains to a body of water, such as a stream, river, wetland, etc.); it will rather be evaporated or incorporated into a product (e.g. water in meat). We refer to this as a water footprint, also known as consumed water or blue water (Water Footprint Network), which represents the total amount of water used in pork production’s life cycle, excluding water returned to the drainage basin.

The water may originate from areas of varying abundance. A scarcity (water stress) coefficient was integrated into the water consumption weighted by the water stress indicator to account for the drawn water’s source. The index varies between 0 (no stress area) and 1 (stressed area).

In the Results section, equivalencies for consumed water are also presented based on the world average to produce one kilogram of pork carcass, this average being equal to 316 l/kg of pork carcass (blue water) or 486 l/kg of pork (source: Water Footprint Network).