Our world in data shows that food is responsible for around 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions, 58% of which are linked to meat, milk and egg production. The amount of greenhouse gases emitted while growing, harvesting, processing, packaging and transporting food, as well as in other stages, must be taken into account.

In parallel with the footprint information being displayed, a survey is being carried out to ask people about their views on a range of issues: the use of the food footprint label on menus; factors preventing or encouraging sustainable food consumption; their current eating habits; and their willingness to follow more sustainable diets.

This is a pilot project which is being carried out by TalTech’s Centre of Climate Smart Future in partnership with the University of Limerick as part of the larger Horizon 2020 project ‘GO GREEN: Resilient Optimal Urban Natural, Technological and Environmental Solutions’.

Kerli Kirsimaa, a sustainability expert at the Centre of Climate Smart Future, says footprint information is only displayed alongside soups and dishes of the day because the tool used to calculate the footprints only works manually. “The ingredients and quantities of each recipe had to be hand-fed into the software, since the cafés use their own cash register software linked to accounting, payment solution or video surveillance systems,” she explained. “The Plus Café menu tends to change regularly, but fixed daily specials were agreed for March so as to simplify the workflow. Displaying footprints for every item would take a lot of man-hours and be difficult to do because of the changing menu and the inconsistencies between the software programs.”

Food portion footprints are calculated using Nutritics Food Data Management software and its methodology.

Note: Taking part in the survey is both voluntary and anonymous, and two lucky participants will win a 50-euro gift voucher for the TalTech souvenir shop.

The survey can be found here.

Find out from the TalTech Sustainability Guide, what each of us can do to reduce our carbon footprint (the guide is currently only in estonian).

Additional info:

Epp Eglajs

Head of the Centre of Climate Smart Future

epp.eglajs@taltech.ee