Three step guide: save money and save carbon on your food consumption

When it comes to personal action to reduce global warming, we can’t avoid looking at our food consumption. There’s a lot of advice around about reducing energy use, and that makes sense as there’s ongoing potential for energy efficiency improvements to save money as well as reduce our contribution to climate change.

But our consumption of food is an equally significant part of our carbon footprint. The production and distribution of food is a huge source of carbon emissions; it’s also an easy area to take action. This infographic from UK site Shrink That Footprint gives the top three actions individual can take.

There is loads that can happen in industry to cut food emissions, but for an individuals it is about what you eat, your food wastage and to a lesser extent food miles.

Personally I think the best place to start is consider what you are wasting, because this is not just unnecessary emissions it is money in the bin.  In the US the average family spends $900 a year on food they waste, in the UK it’s £700 and in Australia it’s over $1,000.

Check out Shrink that Footprint’s how to save money on food by wasting less video series for some inspiration.

Here are a few tips on reducing food waste we published last year.

You might also be interested in Suzie Brown’s Seven Steps to Sustainable Food.