Carbon Footprint Analysis for Kaiser Permanente Food Procurement Alternatives in Northern California Prepared for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers

The Center for Sustainable Economy (CSE) provides analytical and legal support to non-profit organizations throughout the United States in the fields of environmental planning, environmental law, and natural resource economics. CSE’s research team includes experts in ecological footprint analysis (EFA). In this report, we compare the carbon footprint associated with Kaiser Permanente’s current procurement practices for whole fruit, whole vegetables, and processed fruits and vegetables in northern California with an alternative scenario that would procure a greater proportion these foods from local sources. The analysis is based on data provided by the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) as well as constants and conversion factors from government and private sources. 2.0 What is the Carbon Footprint? Ecological footprints provide a spatial measure of humanity’s use of nature in terms of standardized hectares of average global productivity and with respect to four major biomes: crop land, pasture land, forest land, and marine and inland fisheries (Talberth et al., 2006). Ecological footprints also calculate the spatial demands of lands occupied by built space and the area needed to sequester our carbon emissions – or the carbon footprint. Carbon footprint analysis (CFA) i