Simple food swaps could cut greenhouse gas emissions from household groceries by a quarter, says a new Australian study from The George Institute for Global Health. The institute has developed the ecoSwitch app that lets consumers freely check the emissions rating of grocery products.
The study, conducted in collaboration with Imperial College London, showed that switching food and drink purchases to similar but more environmentally friendly alternatives could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from household groceries by 26 per cent.
Researchers calculated the projected emissions of annual grocery purchases from 7000 Australian households using information on ingredients, weights and production life cycles in The George Institute’s FoodSwitch database and global environmental impact datasets.
The study was published in Nature Food, and said that making bigger changes, like swapping a meat lasagne for the vegetarian option, could push the reduction to as much as 71 per cent.
Meat products contributed 49 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, but only 11 per cent of total purchases. Conversely, fruit, vegetables, nuts and legumes represented a quarter of all purchases, but were responsible for just 5 per cent of emissions.
This is the most detailed analysis ever done on the environmental impacts of Australia’s food purchasing behaviour, involving data on greenhouse gas emissions and sales for tens of thousands of products sold in supermarkets.
More than 22,000 products were assigned to major, minor, and sub-categories (e.g. ‘bread and bakery’, ‘bread’ and ‘white bread’, respectively) to quantify emissions saved by switching both within and between these groups.
Source: The George Institute
Lead author and epidemiologist, Dr Allison Gaines, who conducted the analysis for The George Institute and Imperial, said that food and beverage consumption patterns, particularly in higher-income countries like Australia, need to change significantly to meet global emissions targets.
“While consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of the food system and willing to make more sustainable food choices, they have lacked reliable information to identify the more environmentally friendly options,” Gaines said.
It is estimated that around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributable to the food and agriculture sector. In 2019, over 31 million tonnes of food-related greenhouse gas emissions were attributable to products consumed in Australian homes – equivalent to emissions from more than six million cars driving for an average of 22,500km per year.
To make the changes suggested in this study would require on-pack labelling of greenhouse gas emissions for every Australian food, so that consumers could make informed choices.
The George Institute food policy program director, Professor Simone Pettigrew, said that Australia is taking too long to improve the sustainability of the food system, endangering the prospect of a net-zero future.
“Our vision is for a single, standardised sustainability rating system to bring transparency to the environmental impact of packaged foods.
“There is currently no standardised framework for regulating the climate or planetary health parameters of our food supply, but by using studies like this, we can develop innovative ways to help consumers make informed choices and create a movement for positive change.
“With this in mind, we have developed a free app called ecoSwitch, which is based on this research. Shoppers can use their device to scan a product barcode and check its ‘Planetary Health Rating,’ a measure of its emissions from half a star (high emissions) to five stars (low emissions),” said Pettigrew.
The George Institute also plans to extend the ecoSwitch algorithm to integrate other environmental indicators such as land and water use, and biodiversity, and to introduce the tool to other countries.
