Eating to Save the Climate

How can I be more climate conscious in my kitchen? What can the EU do to ensure that food production has less impact on the environment?

10 Aug 2009 A piece of advice to all who wish to be climate smart: eat up what’s on your plate. And don’t imagine that locally produced food is always more eco-friendly. A couple of the many events taking place around the country during Sweden’s EU Presidency will deal specifically with climate-smart food – an area that is something of a minefield for both consumers and producers.

How can I be more climate conscious in my kitchen? What can the EU do to ensure that food production has less impact on the environment?

On 23–24 November, some 250 people – experts, politicians, consumer representatives and others – will gather in Lund to discuss everything from waste disposal to agriculture and international trade. The theme will be two-fold: food and the climate. Today, a quarter of all emissions derive from the food we eat.

“It’s important to remember that as consumers we can actually influence matters through the choices we make when buying food,” says Eskil Erlandsson, Sweden’s Minister for Agriculture. “And one thing I’ve begun to consider is not throwing away food unnecessarily.”

In fact wastage – the fact that much of the food we buy goes straight into the waste bin – is one of the villains of the climate drama. Food production generates large-scale emissions while at the same time the average Swedish family throws away about a quarter of all the food it brings home.

“Food wastage has easily the greatest climate impact – if you just throw food away, all the emissions released into the air and water during production have been unnecessary,” says Louise Ungerth of the Stockholm Consumers’ Cooperative Society.

The Lund conference in November is entitled Climate Smart Food and will discuss climate impact throughout the food chain, from production and transport to consumption and waste. Or from earth to table and back again. During the six months of the Presidency, the topic will be raised elsewhere, too, not least at the informal meeting of agriculture ministers in Växjö on 13–15 September. Sweden is seeking to bring the climate problem more firmly into the food discourse in the EU.

Besides the political meetings, a number of activities are scheduled that will be open to the public. In Växjö, for instance, a theme evening on climate smart food will be organised at the City Library on 8 September. In Stockholm, chef Rune Kalf-Hansen will be cooking food at Kulturhuset with Swedish celebrity guests in August and September, and climatesmart will be one of the themes.

For aware consumers, the most important choices are the ones they make when buying food. Choosing vegetarian ingredients instead of meat from time to time is one way of using your money to advantage, says Louise Ungerth. She notes that beef cattle – and thus our meat production – account for a substantial share of global emissions due to rumination (cud chewing). Similarly, an article that has been flown halfway round the world before reaching the shop shelf is rarely the smartest pro-climate choice. However, all such maxims should be taken with a grain of salt since so many other factors are involved. It is not true, for instance, that locally produced fruit and vegetables are always the most environmentally friendly, says Louise Ungerth.

“No, that definitely doesn’t follow automatically. You have to decide from case to case. Shopping at a small local market isn’t necessarily better if all the farmers have driven a long way to get their produce to the stall. But it may have other advantages.”

The actual food production process is also a major factor. Contrary to what many believe, large-scale production can often be more environmentally friendly than small-scale, if the resources are used efficiently. Nor is proximity to the producer a decisive factor. Vegetable growing in oil-heated greenhouses can generate very substantial emissions, however short the distance may be to the retail point. Taken together, all these factors make it difficult to arrive at a good method for climate labelling foodstuffs. Such a system is currently being discussed in many quarters, both locally and internationally, and will also be addressed at the November conference in Lund. Delegates there will be sharing good ideas and practices from all corners of the EU.

“It’s high time for the link between food and climate to be discussed at a more international level – this is really important,” says Louise Ungerth of the Stockholm Consumers’ Cooperative Society. “It’s also about our food supply in the future.”