Food Ethics Council

The first meeting of the Food Ethics Council's new Business Forum asks 'Is sustainability all in the timing?' A report of the meeting is available here.

Over the past two years, food businesses and the public have been deluged with reports on the environmental footprints of food supply chains. On the face of it, however, far from simplifying the task of ‘greening’ that footprint, these studies seem to have made it more complex. In particular, they have revealed that the contribution our food makes to climate change depends on how it is produced, processed and consumed, and not simply on how far it is transported.

The first meeting of the Food Ethics Council’s Business Forum asked how far a focus on timing could help cut through this complexity. Timing matters because the environmental impacts of producing, processing and distributing food depend in part on whether that food is in season locally and on how quickly it perishes.

The meeting was chaired by Julia Hailes, author of The new green consumer guide and a member of the Food Ethics Council. The discussion was opened by food miles expert Professor Gareth Edwards-Jones, from Bangor University, and Richard Perkins, who works on agriculture and environment at WWF.

We have published a short report of the meeting. The key points we took from the discussion were that:

• Whether fruits and vegetables are in season locally can be the major factor in their energy use and contribution to climate change.
• The high global warming potential of out-of-season produce may arise from production (e.g. heated greenhouses), transport (e.g. air-freight of highly perishable goods) or storage (e.g. through processing or atmospheric control).
• The environmental footprint of food varies through the seasons as well as by place and method of production – carbon labels need to represent this variability in order to drive innovation.
• Data and analysis comparing the environmental footprints of alternative supply chains warrant careful scrutiny – recent marketing claims that it is better for the environment for UK consumers to eat lamb from New Zealand, instead of from the UK, are a case in point.
• While ‘food miles’ are not a simple indicator of sustainability, the concept may be useful in helping businesses communicate environmental issues with their customers.

Click here to find out more about the Business Forum.