Issue #34: Ready, steady, cook
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Our Top Stories
Opt for home cooking and plant-based: According to Food Navigator, the UK has one of the largest ready meal markets globally, with a market value of over ￡3.9 billion. Researchers in Aberdeen have analysed the greenhouse gas emissions of ready meals vs home cooking, and found that plant-based home cooking on the stove produced the least amount of emissions. Animal-based oven-cooked ready meals, on the other hand, produced the most amount of emissions. Home-cooked meals, whether animal or plant-based, seem to be more environmentally sustainable than their generic ready meal counterparts. As ready meals are still a much more convenient option, by opting for more environmentally sustainable ready meals, such as the ones from The Wild Hare, you can still lower your food carbon footprint whilst away from home. [Food Navigator]
Driving sustainable purchasing: Earlier this year, Amazon Business surveyed 5,000 enterprise employees across Europe on their organisations’ approach to more-sustainable purchasing. According to Sustainability Magazine, Gen Z aren’t leading the charge in the way that might be expected. In fact, employees aged 35 and up were just as likely as Gen Z respondents to feel that increasing the sustainability of goods should be a key focus for the workplace (47%), whilst those over 55 were actually more likely to always consider sustainability when making purchasing decisions (31%) compared to those aged 18 to 34 (26%). [Sustainability Magazine]
A boost to UK nature: This week, the UK government announced that over ￡14m will be allocated to successful applicants across two major funding schemes which will support tree planting efforts. This will contribute to the government's commitments to treble tree-planting rates across England by the end of this Parliament, planting 30,000 hectares of trees across the UK per year to meet net zero ambitions. The funds are a welcome sign to a degraded British landscape. This funding should also help level up people’s access to nature, which was outlined as a priority in the recently published UK Environmental Improvement Plan. [GOV.UK]
The lack of credible climate transition plans: Edie highlights the CDP’s latest report that shows less than half a percent of 18,600 companies that disclosed climate information through its platform last year have a credible climate transition plan to net-zero by mid-century. On a global scale, Japan and New Zealand were found to have the highest proportion of businesses with truly credible plans, while the UK performed poorly. As climate reporting becomes more and more regulated, these low numbers should only improve, but whether they will increase at a fast enough rate is the core question. [Edie]
Research Corner
What makes people care about climate change: A new study from Jonas Peisker analyses the factors that drive environmental concern among Europeans, in an effort to understand how to bolster support for combating climate change. The results showed that a more equal distribution of income and wealth had a positive impact on the prioritisation of environmental issues, suggesting that social cohesion is beneficial for green concerns. Socioeconomic context proved to be the most important factor, with favourable conditions - such as a relatively high income level and low inflation - fostering a greater environmental focus. The results of the study emphasise that social cohesion and a just transition to carbon neutrality are key for public support of environmental policies. [Science Direct]
Stat Attack
“As agriculture is threatening wildlife, it’s replacing it with livestock. A stunning 96 percent of the world’s mammal biomass is livestock (this excludes humans), and 71 percent of the world’s bird biomass is farmed poultry. In other words, only 4 percent of the world’s bears, elephants, seals & co. are wild, and only 29 percent of birds live in nature.”
Source: GreenBiz Group
The Big Picture
About Reewild
The food and agriculture industry is at the heart of the climate crisis, generating around a third of man-made greenhouse emissions. And while the challenge of reducing its impact may seem beyond our grasp, it is one that we all have the power to tackle.
We believe that the solution lies in climate transparency. That’s why we’re equipping businesses with the means to evaluate and communicate the emissions of their products. This, in turn, means consumers are armed with credible, independent information, which can be used to make more sustainable choices.
We know that many people want to take climate action but lack the necessary tools and information to do so. We're confident that, armed with the right knowledge, everyone can and will do their bit to build a greener, more sustainable food system.
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