Food Transported by Boat Has the Smallest Carbon Footprint

Many people are interested in how they can eat in a more climate-friendly way. I’m often asked about the most effective way to do so.

While we might intuitively think that “food miles” — how far our food has traveled to reach us — play a big role, transport accounts for just 5% of the global emissions from our food system.

This is because most of the world’s food comes by boat, and shipping is a relatively low-carbon mode of transport. The chart shows that transporting a kilogram of food by boat emits 50 times less carbon than by plane and about 20 times less than trucks on the road.

So, food transport would be a much bigger emitter if all our food were flown across the world — but that’s only the case for highly perishable foods, like asparagus, green beans, some types of fish, and berries.

This means that what you eat and how it is produced usually matters more than how far it’s traveled to reach you.