The carbon footprint of food

Reducing the emissions from our food is a great area to focus on when trying to live more sustainably as it contributes, on average, 25%¹ to our personal carbon footprints. Some foods are greener than others - we’ve all heard that a vegetarian diet is better for the planet than a diet high in meat, for example - but how much greener is one food compared to another, exactly? Can we put a number on it? It turns out that we can, and people have, but it’s much more complicated than you might think.

You might have some carrots in your kitchen at the moment. What makes up their carbon footprint? Starting from the moment the seeds were planted, we might take into account the fuel that the tractor uses on the farm. We might consider what the land was used for before the carrots were there. What fertilisers were used? Did they rely on rain or do they have an irrigation system? Then, how were the carrots picked and packaged? Did they travel far to the factory where they were put in a plastic bag? Where did that plastic come from; is it recycled? How did they get to the supermarket? How did you get them home? How are you going to cook them, and should that even be included?

This is known as the “life cycle” of the carrots, and we can do an analysis on that life cycle to come up with an emissions value for them. Most people follow a standardised way of doing this but since the analysis can be very difficult and expensive to perform, and different people might include different details, we can end up with many different numbers for the same product!

Thankfully, academics are working hard on this every day and our understanding of the carbon emissions of food is ever-improving. We still have a way to go though before all food has a carbon number on it that everyone can agree on (if indeed we can ever get there!)

That being said, we have enough data now to start making informed decisions about the food we eat as a consumer. Sure, this data will improve in the future, and then so can our choices, but until then we can feel confident about eating greener today using the knowledge we have available to us, some of which has come from decades of experience and expertise.

Our sustainability app, EcoTweaks, brings together the knowledge of many different experts and institutions to help you make the best decisions you can when trying to food shop more sustainably. It is not a perfect science, and will only improve as time goes on, but the positive changes we make today can accumulate and grow as our knowledge as a society grows. Using EcoTweaks can not only help you start making greener food choices today, but it can accelerate the push towards clearer and more transparent carbon information about our foods as we prove to industries and leaders that we care about this data.

With your help, we want to use EcoTweaks as a force in this space to liaise with businesses and governments to improve the carbon data available. As we do, we will constantly improve and update EcoTweaks data and the quality of our swap suggestions. What can you do to help? Downloading and using EcoTweaks is an amazing place to start, and you can reach out to us via our Discord server or social media if you have any feedback or suggestions. Let's work together to make greener living easier for everyone!

Sources

¹Mike Berners-Lee (2021) How Bad Are Bananas?, Profile Books Ltd