Green Marketing Manifesto author John Grant responds to our post about whether organic and vegan food is environmental. He says:
It’s a bit of an odd statement - what is ‘global warming potential’?… That is nothing to do with the central issues of animal welfare, use of antibiotics and feed additives such as arsenic. Carbon here is a side issue. There are 850 million chicken raised in britain a year; an average of about 14 per person per year. So on average the difference is just under 30kg of carbon dioxide vs your 11 tonne annual footprint.
greenormal: There’s more to life than CO2
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Is Organic Environmental?
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It was that spin doctor from the British Poultry Council I was really responding to, obviously :) - the only reason organic chicken (which in the UK means free range as well) had a bigger average footprint was in the UK government study he was quoting was that it had a longer lifetime as well as a considerably happier one. If you buy from a local butcher/market who source from local farms (rather than national grocery chains who even in the UK have 800 mile long supply chains for fresh food) I suspect you could more than compensate for those few kg of carbon, and anyway 45% of a small number isn’t very much :J
May 11th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
It was that spin doctor from the British Poultry Council I was really responding to, obviously :) - the only reason organic chicken (which in the UK means free range as well) had a bigger average footprint in the UK government study he was quoting was that it had a longer lifetime as well as a considerably happier one. If you buy from a local butcher/market who source from local farms (rather than national grocery chains who even in the UK have 800 mile long supply chains for fresh food) I suspect you could more than compensate for those few kg of carbon, and anyway 45% of a small number isn’t very much :J
May 11th, 2008 at 4:29 pm