How to reduce your food footprint: if it’s better for you, it’s better for the planet
Curbing waste, eating a plant-rich diet and limiting ultra-processed food (and sadly, coffee and chocolate) will dramatically reduce your carbon footprint.
Food production globally accounts for nearly 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, with the average Australian diet contributing more than 3kg of Co2 per person per day. And what’s worse, we waste about 35% of the food we bring home. If we keep this up, it has been estimated the already unsustainable environmental cost of the food system will nearly double by 2050.
Calculating the precise impact your individual food choices have on the environment isn’t simple, but research suggests the actions we can take to bring that impact down are – and they aren’t just better for the environment, they’re better for our health too.