Analysis of cold chain carbon footprint of fruits and vegetables in China

With the development of the national economy and the continuous improvement of people’s requirements for food, the cold-chain logistics will enjoy more and more attention. The yields of fruits and vegetables in our country has been huge in recent years. To meet the trend of energy conservation and emission reduction and quantify the effect of cold chain on the environment, the life cycle assessment method was used to analyze the carbon footprint of fruits and vegetables cold-chain in the life cycle. The results show that the in each phase of cold chain, the carbon footprint of transportation accounts for a large proportion. As the storage time increases, the carbon footprint of the cold chain increases.The carbon footprint of the refrigerated transport phase and pre-refrigerated storage phase accounts for 50% -70% of the total cold chain. When the transport distance is short, the storage stage is dominant, and as the transport distance increases, the carbon footprint generated also increases.