The Carbon Cost of Food Week 2024: Learnings and Successes

At Cherwell Collective, we believe in the power of small choices to drive big changes. Our recent Carbon Cost of Food Week 2024 campaign shows how understanding the impact of our food choices can lead to shifts in consumer behaviour.

Carbon Cost of Food Week seeks to help people make incremental changes in dietary decisions by lowering and teaching the Carbon Cost of the food choices.  We provide a tool to help participants estimate the carbon footprint, or Carbon Cost, of their food choices in car miles. Moreover, we encourage local food businesses to increase transparency of the carbon footprints of their menus.

By enforcing a £1 per mile Carbon Cost in our café, we observed remarkable changes in purchasing patterns. Plant-based meal consumption nearly doubled, while orders for meat-based meals decreased by approximately 90%. Similarly, at Lady Margaret Hall, a participating Oxford University College, we witnessed a 20% increase in plant-based meal orders and a 10% decrease in meat-based meal orders when Carbon Cost was implemented.

Click here to download our official report on the 2024 Carbon Cost of Food week.

Community Engagement and Outreach

The Carbon Cost of Food Week 2024 was not confined to our café; it was a community-wide endeavour. We engaged with local food businesses and university colleges across Oxfordshire, Carbon Costing 107 items over 19 cumulative days. Eight food businesses and university colleges Carbon Costed their menus.

This year we were thrilled to have tripled participation!

Through five in-person events across Oxfordshire, we reached hundreds of people ages 6-80 during the campaign week. We also reached over 6,500 people on our social media channels alone! We were thrilled to have other organisations like Oxford Food Hub, Good Food Oxfordshire, Replenish Oxfordshire, and Oxford Brookes University ‘Love Student Leftovers’ competition sharing the Carbon Cost of Food Week with their communities. 

Everyone was invited to try our Carbon Cost Challenge. We loved to see results pouring in and people getting to grips with understanding the impact of their food choices.

Impact and Future Directions

In addition to increasing community engagement, the campaign helped us understand consumer choices and how businesses can encourage sustainable options.

A clear learning has emerged: You can immediately change consumer demand by using Carbon Cost as a pricing tool.

Climatarian Kitchen saw a decrease in animal-protein based mains purchased. Only two meat dishes were sold all week. Usually roughly 55% of our dishes contain meat when Carbon Costed pricing is not enforced at our café. Mushroom risotto emerged as a clear plant-based favourite, with 44% of diners ordering it for their meal. Through using surplus ingredients at our Climatarian Kitchen alone, we saved over 1,300 car miles of food waste during the campaign. We also served over 200 Carbon Costed dishes.

Our findings from Lady Margaret Hall were equally promising. This Oxford University College served 1,048 total dishes during Carbon Cost of Food Week. They then ran the exact same menu in March with their regular pricing scheme so that we could evaluate the impact of the Carbon Cost. More on the incredible learnings from Lady Margaret Hall’s participation will be forethcoming.

Challenges and Solutions

Implementing the Carbon Cost model was not without its challenges. In our café, we noted some consumer resistance, particularly concerning higher price points for red meat. However, feedback from diners indicated that the pricing structure influenced their choices, with some opting for vegan dishes due to the lower cost.

Moving forward, we are committed to further exploring the impact of Carbon Cost on profitability, particularly concerning plant-based versus meat-based options. Our aim is to empower businesses to implement transparency which will allow consumers to drive demand. That will help maintain financial viability alongside sustainable practices. 

Looking Ahead

At Cherwell Collective, our mission goes beyond awareness; we empower individuals and businesses to take meaningful action. 

To facilitate this, we have developed a Carbon Cost Toolkit – a comprehensive resource for implementing similar approaches in businesses and lifestyles. This toolkit is available to all, free of charge, and represents our commitment to driving positive change. 

Stay tuned for our upcoming projects, including a cookbook and guide to lowering the Carbon Cost of your life, an animation on food supply chains, and a dedicated toolkit page on our website.

Let’s work together and eat to save the earth!