Daily Mining Gazette/Kurt Hauglie Denina Kaunonen, produce manager for the Keweenaw Co-Op Natural Foods and Groceries in Hancock, looks over some of the store’s produce in March 2014. A new research project at Michigan Technological University will examine how food choices consumers make may affect the climate.

HOUGHTON — It’s probably true that most people don’t think about how their food consumption practices may affect climate, so a new research project at Michigan Technological University is focused on that concept.

Dr. David Watkins, Tech professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the research project is part of a National Science Foundation program called Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water (FEW) Systems.

Watkins said Tech has been involved with sustainability issues for years, and the new project fits in with that effort. His disciplinary background at Tech have been with water resources engineering.

“When the National Science Foundation came out with this program, the food, energy and water nexus, it seemed like a good fit,” he said.

The NSF put out requests for proposals to take part in the project, and Watkins said the organization chose Tech to take lead along with several other research universities, including Arizona State University, Penn State University, Rutgers University, and the University of Minnesota. Also involved is the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. The NSF is funding the project with $3 million over five years.

Watkins said there has been research into how the supply side of food can affect the environment, but the Tech project is looking at consumer choices.

“We wanted to look, instead, more to the consumption side,” he said. “Consumption at the household level is a significant proportion (of food, energy and water use).”

Creating the project involves deciding what to include and what to leave out, Watkins said. For instance, if someone orders food to be delivered, such as pizza, should that be included in the research?

Watkins said the project is using households in the Chicago are for the initial part of the project, because information from that area is similar to other urban areas of the country. The software to collect the data from those households will be created by Charles Wallace, Tech associate professor of computer science.

“The first year of the project is getting households on board,” he said.

The project includes partners who track food supply chains, Watkins said, so it’s possible to have a good idea from where the food consumers in the Chicago area buy originates.

Watkins said the software the participating households use will give them an idea of the environmental impact of their purchases.

The program has particular goals, Watkins said. Gathering data is the biggest part of the project. There is a sociological component, also.

“How do people respond to different kinds of messaging?” he said. “If you see that you’re consuming twice as much as the average in your neighborhood, you might think, ‘What can I do to be more efficient?'”

Watkins said the project has just gotten started, and initially, much of the effort is going to be spent on refining the collection of data, including what should and shouldn’t be focused on.

“Right now we’re recruiting graduate students,” he said. “We’ve had preliminary meetings and organized into sub teams. The first year we’re going to come up with a very rough prototype.”

The team will send annual reports to the NSF, Watkins said, and at the end there will be a final report. They will also publish papers, and get publicity in local media during the five years of the project. Something for the general reader will also be produced when the project is completed.

The plan is to make the consumption-tracking software available to the public, Watkins said. It will be regionally specific, because the use of a gallon of water in the Great Lakes region doesn’t have the same environmental impact as the use of a gallon of water in Arizona, for instance.

Watkins said there are three areas of focus for the FEW project, including letting people know how their food consumption choices affect the use of water and the production of greenhouse gases, protecting food and water security, and letting people know how they can reduce their energy bills by making better consumption choices.