Ang Ge Lin, Bryan Lim Wen Chong, Chan Wai Hon Jonathan, Hon Shi Rui
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
Food systems contribute to 19% – 29% of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans (Vermeulen, Campbell, & Ingram, 2012). However, food consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are often not associated with each other. From a survey we conducted, there is a general lack of awareness on the carbon footprint of food consumed by consumers in Singapore. Hence, we decided to use carbon labels to encourage consumers to pick food choices with smaller carbon footprints. Similar to a nutrition label, a carbon label highlights the carbon footprint of a food item, which is the measure of the total amount of carbon emissions accumulated over the life stages of a product (Wiedmann & Minx, 2008). We implemented it in the RVRC Dining Hall and compared the amount of consumption between different food items in the week before and after. We also created a survey on the side that imitates the addition of a carbon label to measure the general public’s response to a carbon label. By comparing the before and after findings, we found that the labels were able to cause a slight change in consumption, encouraging the RVRC residents to pick the options with a smaller carbon footprint. Similar results were found in our survey, leading to our conclusion that a carbon footprint label can slightly influence food choices in a positive way. Further implementations in Singapore should investigate utilising carbon labels on a larger scale to obtain more significant results.
Keywords: Food, Carbon Labels, Responsible Consumption, Carbon Footprint