Do you plan to incorporate other food practices into Our Climate Actions?

illustration: wind turbines and solar panels

Food is an extremely diverse field, and practices are constantly evolving: home cooking, industrial dishes, self-produced food, insect-based food or exotic products... Faced with this diversity, many consumers wonder why the Nos Gestes Climat carbon footprint calculator does not offer more questions or choices concerning these specific behaviours. This article details the reasons for these limitations and the place of collaborative innovation at the heart of the project.

A tool designed for the general public

From the outset, the decision was made to create a simple, accessible calculator that would be suitable for as many people as possible. In order for everyone to be able to quickly calculate their food carbon footprint, choices had to be made: to focus on the essentials and only ask questions about the habits that have the greatest impact.
The main items included in the questionnaire concerning food are therefore:

  • Meat consumption (beef, poultry, pork, etc.)
  • Fish consumption
  • Dairy products and eggs
  • Processed foods
  • Frequency of purchases and the proportion of local versus imported products
    According to a summary of recent scientific studies, these factors account for most of **the greenhouse gas emissions linked to food consumption. **

More varied eating habits... but difficult to model

We know **that there are countless **original or emerging dietary practices:

  • Self-production (vegetable gardens, domestic chicken farming, self-fishing, foraging)
  • Edible insects
  • Seaweed or alternative products
  • Fasting, mono diets, highly restrictive diets
  • Foraging
  • Fermented foods, homemade lacto-fermented foods
  • Homemade dishes made from raw ingredients
    Each of these practices can influence your carbon footprint in different ways, sometimes very positively! For example, a gardener who grows their own vegetables reduces their footprint related to transport, packaging and preservation to zero; eating insects significantly reduces emissions compared to beef or pork, etc.
    Why not incorporate them all?
  • The diversity is extreme: each production method, each sector, each preparation method (cooking) changes the equation.
  • **Lack of reliable data: **for some products, life cycle analysis is still in its infancy, which makes it impossible to provide robust figures.
  • **Readability and simplicity: **adding more questions would make the tool less understandable and accessible to the general public.

A living project open to collective intelligence

The **Nos Gestes Climat **calculator is a **freely accessible, scalable tool that is open to contributions **from everyone. Is your particular practice not currently taken into account? Does the model seem incomplete to you?
We are listening: simply **send us your ideas for improvement! **
Here are a few examples:

  • Do you raise chickens and want to promote your home-grown eggs?
  • Do you regularly consume crickets, grasshoppers or insect flour?
  • Is most of your food sourced from foraging or gleaning?
    These initiatives are invaluable in advancing our thinking, enriching our database and testing new ways of approaching food in terms of carbon footprint.

Future improvements and areas for consideration

The team is constantly working to improve the calculator. With the emergence of new eating habits and local initiatives, the aim is to refine the model without making it complex or inaccessible.
Future choices will depend on: