In Sub-Saharan Africa, limited access to electricity and refrigerators or cold rooms lead to significant food loss. The challenging climate and lack of suitable storage means the region has some of the highest greenhouse gas emissions from food loss globally. However, in Homa Bay, Kenya, a newly designed blueprint for a low-carbon, sustainable cold room could help avoid this loss whilst reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of refrigeration in the area by 63%.
Our Research Fellow in Sustainability Assessment, Stuart Walker, was part of the team behind this ambitious project which they hope will help transform food security and economic opportunities for small-scale farmers in the region while drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Food loss is a global problem. The causes, and solutions, differ from region to region. As Stuart explains, “there are crucial differences between food waste in different parts of the world. In Europe and North America, the vast majority of food waste occurs after the consumer has purchased the food. We waste millions of tonnes of it in our homes, but the supply chain up to that point is relatively efficient. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the picture is reversed. Very little is wasted once products reach consumers, but there are large losses between harvest and sale. This is due to the large number of small-scale producers, the challenges of transport, climate, and crucially the lack of refrigeration.”
To address this problem, cold rooms are commonly used to try and minimise the amount of food lost at this stage. “A small producer no longer has to try to sell their entire crop of tomatoes in one day before they waste,” explains Stuart. “They can now store a portion in the cold room and sell some each day. This increases their total earnings as they don’t need to discount, reduces waste, and improves food quality and health benefits.”
Many of the existing cold rooms in Africa, while beneficial for reducing waste, often rely on environmentally damaging practices.
“Some cold rooms are powered by diesel generators, and many use environmentally damaging construction materials and methods, such as expanded polystyrene insulation panels and high impact refrigerants,” says Stuart. “In many cases the structures are also not well maintained after installation and there can be limited community engagement, so they sometimes become ‘White Elephants’ after a surprisingly short period of time.”
The objective of this research project was to create a sustainable alternative to reduce emissions and cut food loss. Working collaboratively with Efficiency for Access and other partners in Kenya, Germany and Switzerland, Stuart looked at the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) aspect of the project.
“I used Life Cycle Assessment to help the design team make sustainable choices, and to look for and avoid potential unexpected consequences,” says Stuart. “We made a “tool” to allow us to quickly assess the sustainability of different options, which was really useful in design meetings because it meant we could immediately see the likely outcome of a design change, rather than needing to go away and undertake an assessment.”
Ensuring LCA was involved throughout the project and not just a “bolt-on” at the end, enabled the designed team to make informed decisions based on expert analysis.
“Personally, it was great to work with a team willing to involve Life Cycle Assessment in the design process,” Stuart reveals. “Embedding the LCA from the start meant I was able to help steer the design and balance technical and environmental benefits to achieve the best solution.”
“Our Thursday 8am meetings were the highlight of my week!” he continued. “It was amazing to see how everyone was inspired by the project and willing to go the extra mile. In the end, we have a cold room which works really well, has an engaged community who will continue to look after it, costs 20% less than a conventional system, and has at least 60% lower greenhouse gas emissions.”
A design report has been published to help off-grid solar companies and practitioners design and implement high-performing, low-carbon cooling solutions.
“It’s great to see people reading it and asking questions,” says Stuart. “We’re working on other dissemination to a variety of audiences – one of the most important is other cold room manufacturers. We’re also working on an academic article to engage the LCA community with this work and discuss the design tool and how to really effectively embed sustainability assessment in design.”
As for the cold room itself, it will continue to operate in Homa Bay to keep produce cool, with the team aiming to roll out more sustainable cold rooms in the future.
Meanwhile Stuart and our Sustainability Assessment team are keeping busy working on lots of ongoing projects.
“We’re working on everything from reusable packaging, to bio-based polymers, dental interventions, regulatory science projects, and two more projects in Africa, one on a community cooker and one looking at a simple but effective way to reduce the amount of biomass needed for cooking.”