REALITY CHECK: Checking-in on the climate as you check-out your meat and dairy
COOP DK, the Danish coop that controls 1/3 of the country’s grocery market, says it is trying to educate consumers with an eye toward nudging them to cut back on meat and dairy.
ALI WITHERS: A major supermarket chain in Denmark is offering shoppers something extra at checkout: an estimated amount of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from their groceries. COOP DK, the Danish cooperative that controls one-third of the country’s grocery market, says it is trying to educate consumers with an eye toward nudging them to cut back on meat and dairy, two categories of food that produce the most greenhouse gasses linked to climate change.
At stores run by COOP DK’s five grocery chains — Irma, Fakta, Kvickly, SuperBrugsen and Dagli’Brugsen — shoppers can use an app that gives them a personalized carbon footprint tracker that displays roughly how much CO2 it took to produce the tomatoes, yogurt or cold cuts in their baskets. The tracker, which rolled out in June, also allows customers to compare their footprint to the average shopper…
“What people need to understand is just that animal-based products have a higher [climate] impact,” said Thomas Roland, who leads corporate social responsibility for COOK DK… Animal agriculture is a major source of both carbon dioxide and methane, two greenhouse gasses that are driving the rapid warming of the planet, scientists say…
Roland and his team spent a year developing the tool… “It’s not a tool where you can go to the meat counter and say, ‘Is this lamb chop better than that lamb chop?’ ” Roland said. “What you can see is that lamb has had a substantial impact on your overall basket.” So far, 21 percent of the chain’s 1.2 million app users have checked their carbon footprint, Roland said…
Rikke Nissen is among them. She said she already eats mostly vegetables and little meat, but using the app has heightened her awareness. “You get a wake-up call sometimes and find out, ‘Oh, I didn’t do that quite well [enough], like buying wine or sandwich meat,” said Nissen, who was shopping recently at the Super Brugsen in Copenhagen…
The average Dane is responsible through his or her food choices for the emission of about 6,614 pounds of CO2, or 18.1 pounds a day, according to COOP DK. That’s almost six times the amount recommended by the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet and Health… In Denmark, it is increasingly hard to miss the message that a low-carbon diet is important for the climate. SOURCE…
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