The menu at The Canteen in South West England not only lets diners know how much a dish costs. You can also check the carbon footprint.
The carrot and beetroot pakora with yoghurt sauce is only responsible for 16 grams of CO2 emissions. The eggplants with a miso harissa sauce with tabbouleh and zaatar toast caused 675 grams of carbon dioxide.
As customers weigh their options, Bristol’s vegetarian restaurant’s menu includes a comparison to a dish it doesn’t serve: the emissions of a UK-made hamburger.
“Three pounds for a burger, wow! I can’t believe it,” exclaimed Enyioma Anomelechi, a 37-year-old diner sipping a beer outside in the sun.
The menu states that a true beef burger’s emissions are “10 times those of its vegan alternative.”
The carbon footprint of businesses and consumers is coming under increasing scrutiny as countries strive to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
In July, The Canteen became the first restaurant to agree to put its carbon footprint on the menu in a campaign led by UK vegan charity Viva!
The restaurant’s manager, Liam Stock, called the move a way “to see what we’re doing to understand and improve ourselves.”
According to the UK government, the average Brit has an annual carbon footprint of more than 10 tonnes.
The UK has set an ambitious target of reducing harmful emissions by 78 per cent from 1990 levels by 2035 in order to meet its international climate change commitments.
– ‘climate emergency’ –
Switching to a plant-based diet is one of the most effective ways for a person to reduce their carbon footprint, experts at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in April.
Livestock farming replaces CO2-absorbing forests with grazing land and soybean crops for livestock feed. The animals also emit huge amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
Whether diners will let carbon footprints influence their ordering decisions remains to be seen, but Stock said the menu innovation has sparked interest and support.
“In England, if you’re a big chain restaurant, it’s the law that you have to have calories on (the menu),” he said.
“But a lot of people say … they care more about carbon.”
While noting the “huge” difference in emissions between a hamburger and other dishes, Anomelechi said he doesn’t necessarily want to be burdened with knowing the calorie count or carbon footprint of his order.
“When I go out to eat, I just want to enjoy,” he added, noting that he would be more inclined to change his grocery shopping habits.
Laura Hellwig, campaign manager at Viva!, said that reporting carbon footprints should become mandatory.
“We are in a climate emergency and consumers need to be able to make informed choices,” the activist said.
In her view, “most people would actually choose the planet” when faced with a comparison between the carbon footprint of a meat-based meal and a vegan meal.
– “From the cradle to storage” –
Stock said he knew his restaurant’s dishes would have a low carbon footprint because most of his ingredients are locally sourced.
“We didn’t have to change anything,” he said, but admitted to some surprises, such as realizing that imported spices are driving up emissions.
To calculate the footprint of the dishes, The Canteen sent their recipes and ingredient origins to a specialist company called MyEmissions.
It is able to calculate the carbon footprint from “cradle to store”, taking into account cultivation, processing, transport and packaging.
“If I had to choose between two dishes, I might choose the one with the smaller footprint depending on how hungry I am,” said Nathan Johnson, a 43-year-old patron at the restaurant.
That day, he opted for the cook’s lettuce, which contains 162 grams of carbon.
Another diner, 29-year-old Emma Harvey, also supported the idea of greater awareness of carbon footprints “and the ethical implications of the food we eat”.
“We have to integrate things like this into everyday life,” she said.
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