'Veganism is the single biggest way to reduce our environmental impact'. In 2020 an oxford study found that becoming vegan can reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73 percent. Our proposal involves encouraging people to make the change towards plant-based eating. When trying to think of ways that engineering can help to tackle some of the most critical real-world problems, we used a report by the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine to arrive at our idea. We considered different ways to solve the problem of world hunger by sustainably feeding the population. These initial ideas included increasing yields of food, reducing food waste and changing people's diets. We decided that encouraging a change in people's diets would give more individual responsibility and therefore a more positive overall result could be reached, even if everyone just decided to make small changes to their current lifestyle. We explored some other options including creating an app or educational resource but decided that these options may not be as accessible or convenient for the consumer.
Our idea involves implementing a similar initiative to the traffic light labelling that is used on pre-packaged food items to show the nutritional information of the product using a colour coded system. The food items would instead be rated on their environmental impact using greenhouse emissions that have been calculated from a multi-indicator database that considers processing, packaging, and transportation of the products. Our idea is justified by scientific evidence that shows how making the change to a plant-based diet can reduce greenhouse emissions, help to combat climate change, and end world hunger. Green would mean that the food product has minimal environmental impact and is associated with greenhouse gas emissions no greater than 10kg of CO2 per 100g, whereas red would indicate a much more significant impact with CO2 emissions exceeding 25kg per 100g and amber representing the range in between. This criterion has been based upon a research study carried out by J. Poore and T. Nemecek that investigates and provides a detailed estimate of the environmental impact of 40 different food products, representing 90% of the global protein and calorie consumption, through producers and consumers. The study concluded that, although different production practices and geographies have different consequences for the planet, even the lowest impacting animal products exceeded those of vegetable substitutes and was an incredibly useful source of information for our proposal. Our long-term aim, although ambitious, would to be to make this type of labelling compulsory for food manufacturing companies with the purpose of encouraging people to make more environmentally conscientious choices. We would put a priority on labelling meat, dairy and animal product alternatives which can be used for comparison. Funding our proposal could be challenging, especially for reluctant food manufacturers, however we suggested some solutions such as using a non-profit organisation or university funded research group to create the database and having the support of an existing global food organisation to put the labelling into practice.
Resources
National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine Presentation
PowerPoint Presentation (nap.edu)
Study by J. Poore and T. Nemecek
(PDF) Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers (researchgate.net)
PRESENTATION
Three SMART personal actions:
Ensure that I am fully educated before making purchases so I can be informed on the most sustainable and ethical choices.
Use the information I have gained through research during this project to make better choices and buy fewer animal products.
Continue to think of ways in which my university studies can contribute to reshaping engineering for a more sustainable future.