Switching to Organic Agriculture-Based Textile and Food Products to Reduce Global Warming Emissions
摘要
Greenhouse gases from human activities have contributed approximately 1.1 °C to global warming since 1850–1900. In this respect, the aim of this study is to compare the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of organic products from different categories with their conventional analogues. The research involves collecting data from literature reviews published between 2013 to 2024, as well as analysing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and environmental impact reports for certain Fairtrade-certified products. Two product categories have been analysed including food and textiles products given their contribution to global carbon emissions, both part of the agricultural use of land. Through this comparative analysis, the study aims to quantify the organic products capability to reduce climate change phenomenon. Results indicate significant variation in the literature, with food products showing an average reduction of 9.1% in GWP due to the use of organic production, while textiles show an average reduction of 49.3%. A great standard deviation variation, that changes from 15.54% for food products, to 0.3% for the analysed textiles, has been found. This variability highlights the contradictions found in the literature. In specific, in the food sector, even increases in GWP have been detected, in contradiction of other studies. In certain products, such us in the coffee production reductions of 30.8% or increases of 1342% in organic production are identified. This study concludes that there is a clear need to increase scientific research on organic products emissions with respect to conventional ones. In addition, the reduction that different agricultural product categories could offer needs to be characterised individually.