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WEN : Nobody's Counting Food Miles

Nobody knows how much food transport contributes to climate change because nobody is counting, a new briefing on food transport reveals. Sustainable Sustenance: food transport and the environment by Women's Environmental Network (Note1) calls for carbon dioxide emissions from air and sea freight to be counted, and for a tax on aviation fuel, to reflect the true cost of food transport.

Sustainable Sustenance (Note2) was launched at the WEN stall at Consume This! the V&A's September Friday Late on 24 September which was all about sustainable design in art, food and culture.

Around a quarter of the UK's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are thought to come from transporting food from growers to processors and distributors, to shops and into our homes, says the briefing.    But amazingly, it reveals, air and sea freight emissions are not included in the greenhouse gas inventory of the UK or any other country.  Caroline Fernandez,  WEN's food project coordinator asked:

“If Tony Blair doesn't know what is being done to cut food miles, as he admitted in Parliament last week (Note3), and the Government doesn't even measure their impact how on earth can the UK meet it's target to reduce CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050?” 

Sustainable Sustenance offers shoppers tips on how to reduce food miles, the distance your food travels from 'plough to plate'.  It compares the journeys different foods make and the CO2 emissions they cause and answers the perennial question 'which is best, organic, fairtrade, local or seasonal?'

Notes:

1. WEN is a national membership charity that campaigns on environmental and health issues from a women's perspective.  It was one of the first UK organisations to campaign on food miles, publishing its first briefing on the issue in 1997 and co-organising the first farmers' markets conference in 1998.

2. Sustainable Sustenance will be available to download free from http://www.wen.org.uk or by post for 50p a copy from WEN, PO Box 30626, London E1 1TZ.

3. Hansard 15/9/04, column 1266, Q6 [188836]

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