Eating Nordic food outside home - a mutual challenge in combating the climate change

1. New Nordic Food Conference – The potential and future of Nordic food when eating outside home Professor Sirpa Kurppa Agrifood Research Finland Eating Nordic food outside home - a mutual challenge in combating the climate change 17.12.11

3. 17.12.11 Low carbon footprint is not required, yet, and it is questionable if a carbon footprint of a single food portion would be a sound way for certifying environmental sustainability. A lot of labels referring to climate change and other impacts is available and more to come Carbon foot print Water foot print Nutrient foot print Ecological foot print

4. 17.12.11 The food plate model Figure Merja Saarinen MTT

7. 17.12.11 In vegetarian dishes the differences between production phases balance In vegetarian meals methane has minor importance With ready-to-eat dishes importance of impacts from home activities decrease and impacts from food processing increase

8. Carbon footprint is anyhow valuable, why! 17.12.11

13. 17.12.11 UNDERLYING CAUSES AND REMEDIES: A KEY FOCUS THE COUNT-UP TO 2052: AN OVERARCHING FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION

14. By focusing to communication about carbon footprint and accepting environmentally sound way of present choices, we are able to decrease the carbon foot print of our food by about one quarter. If we want to go further, possibly to carbon neutrality, changes of values, time sharing and change of institutions have to happen linked to a more human centric economy. Locally more ‘frozen’ public food services may become a first step of a much bigger change. 17.12.11

15. We could potentially freeze our foot print to our close neighborhood (ecosystem services as close as possible)! 17.12.11