• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Instagram
  • Amazon
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary

fuel that adventure

  • Home
  • The Food
    • All Manner of Sweet Things
      • Cake
      • Chocolate
      • Cookies
      • Ice Cream
      • Squares
      • Everything Else
    • Veggie
      • Salad
      • Vegetarian
      • Vegan
    • Carbohydrates
      • Bread
      • Pasta
      • Potato
      • Gluten Free
      • Rice
      • Pastry
    • Soup
    • Hoof & Feather
      • Beef
      • Chicken
      • Lamb
      • Pork
    • Fin & Shell
    • Breakfast
  • The Adventures
    • Shetland
      • Hike Shetland
    • Belgium
    • England
    • France
    • Italy
    • Latvia
    • Norway
    • Scotland
    • Spain
    • The Caribbean
    • USA
  • About Me
  • As Seen
  • PR & Disclosure
  • Contact Me
Featured image for carbon labels for food blog blog post. It shows three recipes from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary with their associated carbon footprint labels.

Carbon footprint labels for recipes

Published on November 5, 2020 by Elizabeth Atia
Pinterest pin for carbon footprint labels.
Pinterest pin.
Pinterest pin.
 

On the 15th of October 2020, Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary became (quite possibly?) the first food blog in the world to add carbon footprint labels to its recipe cards. Now, at a glance, you can see the environmental impact of our recipes. Find out how, and why…

 

Featured image for this blog post shows three recipes with their carbon footprint labels.

Table of Contents

  • Carbon labelling for food blogger recipes – a world’s first
  • Introduce yourself! Who are you guys and what do you do?
  • What are carbon emissions?
  • What prompted you to start this project? Where did the idea come from?
  • What are environmental labels for recipes?
  • Why do you think carbon labelling is needed?
  • What is the daily fair emissions percentage?
  • How have you figured out the carbon emissions for each ingredient? Talk us through the background science.
  • How do you see carbon labelling evolving in the future?
  • Do you have any tips for reducing the environmental impact of our diet?
  • Anything else you’d like to add?
  • Get carbon labels for your recipe website
  • Spread the word! Pin this post!

Carbon labelling for food blogger recipes – a world’s first

We have teamed up with My Emissions to bring you, at a glance, the carbon footprint per serving of each of our recipes. If you write a food blog yourself, you might also be should be interested in these labels.

Why?

The carbon labelling movement has been gaining momentum over these last few years. Brands such as Quorn and Oatly already displaying their carbon footprint on their packaging, and there are a number of other multinational companies looking into doing the same.  

We at Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary believe that carbon labelling will become standard, in the near future, just like the traffic light labelling for food that we’re familiar with now.  This labelling will help us make informed choices about our diets, and give us insights about how these choices directly impact the environment. 

Carbon footprint labelling on food blogger recipe image.

Screenshot of carbon label on a food blog recipe.

I like how the environmental label from My Emissions fits seamlessly into my recipe card under the nutritional information. You can see, at a glance, the impact that making my recipes will have on the environment. It’ll also encourage me to create lower carbon recipes.

My Emissions have come up with a daily fair emissions value too. There’s no sense in having a carbon footprint number if we don’t know what it means. What’s a high number, or a low? They’ve worked out that in 2020, 3 kg of emissions per person per day is considered fair. You can find out more about this in the text below.

I could wax lyrical about the merits of these labels, where they came from and why we should push food producers and recipe writers to adopt them, but I thought that this information should come straight from the My Emissions developers themselves – Matt and Nathan.

So I asked them a few questions…

Photo collage of Matt and Nathan from My Emissions.

Introduce yourself! Who are you guys and what do you do?

Hi! We’re Matt and Nathan, the co-founders of My Emissions. We met in our first year of University, and have been friends for about 5 years now.

We’ve had a variety of jobs between us, including engineering and tech start-ups, which has prepared us well for our new venture. Broadly, Nathan develops our website and tech, whilst Matt works on our data, sales, and marketing – as with any start-up, though, we end up working on lots of things together!

Image of papaya salad with carbon footprint labelling in top left corner.

What are carbon emissions?

There are many different types of greenhouse gas emissions, which occur naturally in the world. Human consumption, however, has led to increasing levels of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere – accelerated by, for example, burning lots of fossil fuels and deforestation. 

These gasses stop heat from escaping the world’s atmosphere, so rising levels are heating up the planet – it’s like the ‘greenhouse effect’, hence their name.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas, but there are many more including methane and nitrous oxide. In order to properly assess the ‘global warming potential’ (GWP) of a product, all gasses produced are converted into carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e), allowing us to easily create a single value for the climate impact of each recipe.

Image of blueberry muffins with carbon footprint labelling.

What prompted you to start this project? Where did the idea come from?

It very much started as a ‘lockdown project’, and it’s gone from there really.

In March of this year, we were both left with lots of time and no other work: Matt had been furloughed, whilst Nathan had quit his previous job intending to go travelling, which had to be cancelled.

We both want to live more sustainably, but were frustrated at the lack of clear environmental data. We’d always talked about working on a project together, and after a few visits to the “Virtual Pub,” we decided to research what we could do.

After a bit of time, we identified the lack of carbon labels for food, and that’s when we properly got to work.

Picture of pumpkin pasta with environmental information labelled.

What are environmental labels for recipes?

There are lots of different types of ‘environmental labels’, including an ‘accreditation’ based on meeting certain criteria or an aggregating ‘score’ based on different factors. Our food environmental labels are closer to nutritional information, displaying the quantified carbon footprint of the recipe.

Why do you think carbon labelling is needed?

Without clear environmental information, it’s hard for people to know what food is better or worse for the environment. Environmental labels are therefore going to be incredibly important in helping to educate and empower people to make more sustainable choices, just as nutritional information has been for health.

A less talked about benefit is they will force people to think about the climate when choosing their food. Right now, it’s very difficult to ‘see’ the emissions from food – it’s not like a car where you can often see and smell exhaust emissions.

Displaying clear values next to each recipe helps people to ‘see’ the embodied emissions in the food, as well as pointing to the more sustainable options so they can reduce their own carbon footprint.

Image of leftover roast chicken noodle soup with carbon emissions labelling in top left hand corner.

What is the daily fair emissions percentage?

We wanted to give context to our carbon footprint results – we realised that telling someone their food contributed, say, 1kg CO2e didn’t really mean a lot. Taking inspiration from nutritional information, we, therefore, calculated a ‘fair daily amount’, which contextualise whether a recipe’s emissions are high or low.

The value we have calculated is about 3 kg CO2e/person/day. This value is based on the estimated global greenhouse gas emissions from food in 2018.

We decided to use a global figure, rather than a figure for each region, as we don’t think it’s right to ask low-polluting countries to reduce their footprint even further – we believe people with higher carbon footprints bear a greater responsibility to reduce their emissions.

Finally, the value also takes into account the UN’s projection that global emissions must fall by 7.6% each year in order to limit global warming to less than 1.5°C.

Find out more: Understanding the Fair Daily Food Emissions Value 

Image of peanut butter flapjacks with carbon emission labelling in top left hand corner.

How have you figured out the carbon emissions for each ingredient? Talk us through the background science.

We calculate the average carbon footprint values based on environmental ‘life cycle assessments’. There are many studies for each food, which we collect and compare to get an average of each food.

In each study, you map the exact processes required to make a given food, taking into account the farming techniques used, processing, packaging, transport, and more. You can then match each process to the expected greenhouse gas emissions, allowing you to estimate the total climate impact of the food.

Image of smoked salmon sushi with carbon label.

How do you see carbon labelling evolving in the future?

I think they will become much more widespread, and you will start to see carbon labels on food products and in cafes and restaurants. There’s a chance it could even become required by law for things like food products to display this information, although for that the cost of each assessment would need to be reduced.

There may also be a shift from the labels we display now, which just present the carbon footprint value, towards a score or rating system, although more research will need to go into that.

Photo of lamb shanks recipe with carbon labelling in top left corner.

Do you have any tips for reducing the environmental impact of our diet?

The best thing you can do is to reduce your consumption of meat, or any animal-based products. Over their lifestyle, animals emit a very high amount of methane (usually through burping). Methane is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The next best things you can do is reduce and avoid food waste – it’s estimated that 25% of all food is wasted, which correlates to a whopping 6% of total global greenhouse gas emissions!

Finally, eating seasonal food is also usually much better than eating out-of-season food, which has higher emissions from having to artificially create the right environment.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Only that we’re still at the start of our journey, and if you have any ideas or ways we can use the values, or want to use them yourself, then we’d love to hear from you!

Get carbon labels for your recipe website

It’s really easy to do – simply visit My Emissions and sign up! Matt and Nathan do all the hard work for you with regards to integrating their affordable carbon footprint label into your blog theme and recipe card, and they’re super pleasant to deal with too. They’re rather likeable young chaps, they are!

Alternatively, if you want to check what the carbon footprint of a recipe or ingredient is yourself, use their handy food emissions calculator. 

Spread the word! Pin this post!

Pinterest pin for carbon footprint labels.
Pinterest pin.

This is not a sponsored post. I am paying My Emissions for their valuable services as it’s something I believe strongly in. However, if you do sign up with them via Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary we will earn a small commission (which in turn will help me pay them for their continued work!). 

Category: Sustainability, Uncategorized

About Elizabeth Atia

Daydream adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Calls Shetland home.

Previous Post: « Image of a chocolate Halloween graveyard cake with three spooky graves surrounded by a chocolate matchmakers crooked fence. Easy Halloween Graveyard Cake
Next Post: The Foodie Bag: a food photography starter set Header image collage for food photography bag. »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Nic | Nic's Adventures & Bakes

    November 10, 2020 at 11:35 am

    Thanks for sharing, this loloks like a great idea 🙂

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Atia

      November 10, 2020 at 12:45 pm

      Thanks Nic! I’m so excited to be part of this new labelling system – I think it’ll catch on pretty quickly too.

      Reply
  2. Shinta Simon

    November 6, 2020 at 1:53 pm

    This is a fantastic concept! Thank you for sharing this. What a good way to increase awareness of the carbon footprint of the food we consume. Bookmarking away!

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Atia

      November 10, 2020 at 12:46 pm

      Thanks! It’s an exciting project to be part of, that’s for sure!

      Reply
  3. Toni Dash

    November 6, 2020 at 1:48 pm

    This is really awesome! I’d love to check it out!

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Atia

      November 10, 2020 at 12:46 pm

      I hope you do! It’s an awesome thing, I think!

      Reply
  4. veenaazmanov

    November 6, 2020 at 12:57 pm

    Very interesting information. Thanks . Great pictures too.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Atia

      November 10, 2020 at 12:47 pm

      Aw thanks! I’ve been experimenting with my photography style lately. I think it’s working!

      Reply
  5. David

    November 6, 2020 at 11:42 am

    Interesting idea! New concept to me, as far as putting carbon footprint info on recipes.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Atia

      November 10, 2020 at 12:47 pm

      It’s new to everyone, really, but I really do think we’ll be seeing more and more of it over the coming years.

      Reply
  6. Danielle Wolter

    November 6, 2020 at 11:37 am

    This is very interesting. I haven’t seen much of it in the US yet, but I love the idea. It’ll def make us more aware!

    Reply
    • Elizabeth Atia

      November 10, 2020 at 12:48 pm

      Have a look at Oatly and Quorn packaging – you’ll see the labels there. It’s coming, slowly! 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Sidebar

About Elizabeth

Adventurer. Expat Canadian. Foodie. Loves bikes. Calls Shetland home. Read More…

Inspiration

“Every day is another chance to get stronger, to eat better, to live healthier, and to be the best version of you.”

Recent Posts

Image of a stainless steel camping bowl filled with chorizo chowder. There are a few slices of toasted focaccia on the side with gorgeous black grill lines.
Image of The Face of Neeans with its very steep cliffs.

Copyright © 2011–2022 Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary Ltd · Privacy Policy · All Rights Reserved · Website by Callia Web

Company Number: SC643807 · Registered Business Address: 42 Carden Place, Aberdeen, AB10 1UP