Food supply chain decarbonisation: towards a Zero emission in Beverages Value Chain, a Case of Delta, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The rise in carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in general were ushered in by industrial revolution due to industrial and human activities leading to global warming which accelerated climate change and more extreme weather occurrences in recent decades (IPCC, 2021). Consequently, the UN advocated for decarbonisation to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 (Guterres, 2020). The prime objective of this paper was to assess various measures that beverage supply chain members can utilize to achieve decarbonisation of their value chain and offer specific suggestions to the stakeholders of beverage supply chain to address carbon the emission. In the quest to attain this objective, a "Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis" (PRISM) method was used. A search was done in the Scopus, ProQuest, and Google Scholar databases using keywords that had been verified by specialists as part of the study. On these subjects, publications from the top journals were chosen. 150 articles were found by the bibliographical search, which was followed by several layers of filtering. In the end, 25 publications were reviewed and analysed, with the most pertinent articles being chosen for examination. The major findings of the research were that the quantity of carbon released doubled since 2001 owing to destruction of forests, the existing global pledges are insufficient, the world has already fallen short of the 2015 climate goals, and lack of adoption of essential technology tools to reduce carbon emission. Consequently, the study recommends the adoption of industry 4.0 technology tools like Virtual reality (VR), reduction of packaging material by the beverage industry, usage of smart electric energy from renewable sources and the implementation of reverse logistics to enhance carbon neutral by 2050.