How does your spending contribute to climate change?
Our day-to-day spending puts our very existence in danger. However, technology is here to help us.
Imagine a day in your life — it’s Friday. You take the train to work, pick up your favourite coffee on the way, grab some crunchy breakfast, pizza for lunch (it’s Friday!), meet friends for a couple of drinks after work followed by eating out at that Thai restaurant you really wanted to check out. Finally, you take the train back home.
It was a good day. And it cost you £ 39.75. But how much did your good day cost the planet?
What is the impact on the planet?
Let’s take the delicious pepperoni pizza that you ordered for lunch as an example. You paid £ 12.99 and collected your pizza but a lot happened behind the scenes. And almost everything leading to the delivery of your freshly baked pizza contributed to climate change. Let’s dissect this to understand better.
Your carbon footprint from the spending on pizza for lunch is 2.5 kg of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases
The £ 12.99 spent on the pizza covered the cost of everything from farming of the ingredients to serving your hot pizza. If we just focus on the direct impact on the climate from your pizza order, then we are talking about — 1) the ingredients, 2) transportation and distribution, and 3) energy usage. Let’s look at these in more detail.
1. Production of ingredients. The ingredients that make the pepperoni pizza so delightful — cheese (dairy), meat, and solid fats — are also the ones that impact the climate the most. All these are derived from farmed animals.
Animal farming, including all activities leading to edible animal products, contributes 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
2. Transportation and distribution of the ingredients. Ingredients are often not locally sourced. This means they have to be transported from distant farms or processing plants located domestically or abroad to retail points. Transportation burns fuel and releases greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which increases global warming. Also, the distribution process includes refrigeration and packaging which further add to the emission of greenhouse gases.
Transportation and distribution account for nearly 6% of all greenhouse gas emissions from animal products.
3. Energy usage. Energy is used throughout the supply chain — from animal rearing in the farms to putting the animal products on the retail shelves to preparing the pizza. Electricity, gas, or fuel is used to derive this energy which in turn produces greenhouse gases.
Energy usage accounts for 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions from the production of animal products and that is even before the ingredients have reached the restaurant.
At the restaurant, about 14% of all the greenhouse gas emission is from in-house energy usage. Combine this with data from British Gas that, on average, 40% of a restaurant’s energy usage is for refrigeration of the ingredients and preparation of the food you have ordered. This amounts to substantial greenhouse gas emissions as a direct result of your pizza order just from the restaurant operations.
Elaborate mathematical models consider the complex supply chain involved in bringing food to the table and estimate the emissions from expenditure on consumption. The £12.99 spent on a medium pepperoni pizza produced 2.5 kg of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases. It is your carbon footprint from your spending on lunch on this day.
What does this impact mean?
Greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere increase the air temperature by retaining more heat. So, how much damage can 2.5 kg of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases from a pizza cause? Nothing noticeable.
Your spending on pizza can melt an area of Arctic sea ice equivalent to 1.5 times that of a medium-sized pizza
Imagine eating pizza or something equivalent every week of the year. Over time your impact adds up. The amount of greenhouse gases emitted from a year of your spending on pizza (or something that is similarly heavy on animal products) would be sufficient to melt 1.4 square feet of Arctic sea ice i.e., an area approximately 1.5 times a medium-sized pizza.
The devastating consequences of the melting Arctic sea ice is a whole different topic. Impact on the climate through your expenditure on pizza is just one of the many ways your spending impacts the climate.
What can you do with this information?
If changes at an individual, community, and organisational level are not made soon enough then it may not be possible to avert a climate change triggered disaster.
Technology can help you become aware, reduce and offset your carbon footprint, thus leading to a more sustainable lifestyle.
At an individual level, you can make spending decisions on consumption that lead to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions lifestyle. The first step is being aware of the greenhouse gas emissions from your spending. The next step is the reduction and offsetting of emissions to become net-zero.
Automation and new financial regulations (Open banking) have now made it possible to effortlessly become aware of the impact of your spending on a day-to-day basis.
Furthermore, new technology solutions can provide you with simple, actionable insights on how and where you can reduce the emissions from your spending.
Similarly, technology solutions help you offset the emissions from your spending by making it easy to sponsor high-quality environmental projects across the world.
Innovative solutions can make it effortless for you to track your carbon footprint from your expenditure, make the necessary changes and achieve a sustainable lifestyle that is net-zero emissions.
Wyzr is developing a game-changing technology to make personal finance more sustainable. It will not only help you save more and manage your money better but also make it easy to spend in a climate-friendly way and reach a net-zero lifestyle which is vital for averting a climate disaster.
Find out more about us @ www.wyzr.uk
