Shopping is an activity that we either love or hate but few people can get away without doing on a regular basis. As well as thinking about the cost of shopping, and the time and effort it takes, more people are now thinking about the environmental impact of their shopping [...]
Many people cite the need to have a good, balanced diet as they tuck into meat-based meals three times each day but are we looking at ‘balance’ with rose colour glasses? Many fast food choices incorporate meat, but they are also high on fat and sugar and low on fresh [...]
The idea behind carbon labelling is to introduce new information onto the labels of food sold in supermarkets to show how much carbon dioxide has been produced in making that food and getting it to that supermarket. The first food to have carbon emissions information on its label was Walkers [...]
In the time of most of our great grandmothers, no-one ever used a plastic bag for carrying their shopping. People used baskets or cotton bags or paper bags. The development of thin plastics in the 1960s and 1970s led to our increasing dependence on putting everything in plastic, which seemed [...]
As we all try to lower our carbon footprint, business has a role to play, too. That’s especially true of the retailers where we buy things. At supermarkets we’ve become used to purchasing virtually any kind of fruit or vegetable at any time of the year, often without giving a [...]
The revolution in farm shops and farmers’ markets began about a decade ago. Revolution might seem like a strong term but in many ways, that’s exactly what it was. It was a revolt against the way food had become so homogenous and mass-produced. The supermarkets had taken over, and many [...]
We’re a consumer society. These days it often seems, we live to buy things. But the more new things we buy, the more energy is used in making and transporting them. That all goes into our carbon footprint and adds to the country’s CO2 emissions. But it’s as if we’re [...]
There’s a price to pay for everything item of food you buy at the supermarket. That price is not just how much it costs in money but also the food miles involved. What are food miles? In a nutshell, it’s how far the food has to travel from where it’s [...]
Everything we buy comes with packaging. The big problem is that there’s generally far too much of it. Often there’s far more packaging than item and we just end up throwing it away since so much of it is made of plastic or of some other material that can’t be [...]
There’s no doubt that the popularity of organic food is increasing – you simply have to look at the produce and meat sections of your local supermarket to realise that. People believe it’s healthier and better for us to eat food that hasn’t been touched by chemicals. But can eating [...]
You might well be wondering how what you eat can affect your carbon footprint or even if it can. But the truth is that your diet really can have an effect on climate change, albeit indirectly. The vast majority of us eat meat with most meals. We might have other [...]
