The word ECO has been brought up in various media recently, especially with the threat of climate change due to global warming. Thanks to this, more people are aware of environmental issue when shopping.
There are several steps involved in the Eco process, one of the main ones being Food Miles. It represents the distance which eating goods travel between the production location and the consumer's plate. Food Miles has been a burden on the environment since the longer goods travel, the bigger the impact on the environment.
In Japan, self sufficiency in food decreased to 39% in 2006, the lowest level amongst developed countries. When self sufficiency in food gets lower, solution is to import goods to palliate the shortage. This in turn increases food miles along with Co2 emissions.
The term Food Miles is not very known in Japan yet, but some companies such as AEON and Seven & i Holdings have taken Food Miles into account and will start to act from 2009.
One of the biggest British supermarket chains, Tesco, has already started putting food miles indicators on some products packaging. They tell you how many grams of carbon or equivalent greenhouse gases were emitted as a result of growing, manufacturing, transporting and storing a specific product.
Other products also indicate the carbon footprint in comparison to other similar products so that consumers can understand which products are the most eco-friendly. Furthermore, some labels also give consumers ideas on how to reduce a product's footprint when you using it.
In this wealthy world, even out-of-season-foods can be easily purchased in stores all year round. This is because they have been imported and sold to meet the customer s' expectations. But this is not necessary; we should not demand to have something which is not readily available locally, in order to reduce Co2emissions and improve climate change.
There is a café in Yokohama called 80*80(hachimaru hachimaru), where the concept is to only use 80% foods available within the 80km range of café to provide an environmentally friendly meal.
Obviously being aware of Food Miles, this café is very eco friendly and makes people realise that there are plenty of good products available close to them instead importing from other countries.
Besides the corporate commitment, there actually many things we can do in our day-to-day life to reduce Food miles. It is one of the good examples to check the place of origin and try to buy some domestic products when you go to grocery shopping. Also you may want to shop at Saturday morning market at Roppongi Hills East Court where freshly picked vegetables, fruits and flowers brought from Ibaraki prefecture are available at reasonable prices. Another good idea is that if you have some space at your balcony or garden, you could even start growing your own vegetables or fruits.
As a start, even these little actions will help solve our environmental problems.
