Why focus on food when looking for ways to reduce your carbon footprint?

When we think about how to reduce our carbon footprint, there are a few ways we can go about it. Perhaps we could switch our plane holiday abroad this year to an interrailing trip instead? Maybe we could install some solar panels on the roof? Get rid of the car and cycle everywhere? These are amazing options that would make a massive difference, but they all feel expensive, very time consuming, or both.

There are some smaller things we could do, of course. Perhaps we could make sure to recycle properly? Or, we could buy our vegetables loose instead of in plastic packaging. These are absolutely all worth doing and will be explored in future blogs, but it’s sometimes hard to know just how much good you’re doing for the effort you’re putting in, and keeping track of everything can easily get on top of you.

As it happens, there is something we can focus on that has an almost unbelievably high impact for the low cost and effort required: our food choices. It is by no means the only option, but it’s a very good place to start...

If you had to guess, how do you think your carbon footprint is divided up? How much of it comes from transport? Food? Clothes shopping? The biggest contributor to our carbon footprint is travel at 27%², but food makes up a whopping 25%² on average, coming in second. So focusing on reducing the impact of just your food could reduce your carbon footprint by up to 18%³ (we still need to eat!).

The beauty of choosing to focus on food is that you can make subtle changes which feel like nothing but make a big impact. It’s not all-or-nothing; you don’t need to go vegan (although bonus points if you do!), just make easy sustainable swaps consistently and the impact will grow. Even better, you can actually save money. Chicken, for example, emits about 70%¹ less carbon than beef and is 65%⁴ cheaper, so it is a win-win!

If the average UK shopper made 5 greener swaps to their food shop every week, they could save 40-80kg¹ of CO₂* per month which is the equivalent of between 80 and 160 miles of driving¹! The potential for low-effort savings here are huge.

It is clear that reducing the carbon footprint of our food choices is a great place to focus our sustainability efforts - one that could save us money with no extra effort on our part. You can use a tool like EcoTweaks to make these swaps as easily as possible, swapping foods directly into your shopping list so that when you go shopping you can make greener choices without thinking about it!

Any and all effort to live more sustainably is a huge win for the planet and should be celebrated. Why not get started today, and choosing to focus on food can lead to massive carbon savings in a manageable, achievable and fun way!

Sources

¹EcoTweaks^®, Cozy Mae Studios Ltd

²Mike Berners-Lee (2021) How Bad Are Bananas?, Profile Books Ltd

³J. Poore, T. Nemecek, Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers, Science 360, 987-992 (2018), DOI:10.1126/science.aaq0216

⁴Average of products at Tesco, Aldi and Sainsbury’s (2025)

*All “carbon savings” are measured in kgCO₂eq (kg of CO₂ or equivalent).