Did you know the food served at events significantly impacts carbon emissions?

In fact, transport, housing, and food have the three largest carbon footprints.

What determines the carbon footprint of food?

Food’s carbon footprint is the greenhouse gas emissions produced by:

  • Growing
  • Rearing
  • Farming
  • Processing
  • Transporting
  • Storing
  • Cooking
  • Disposing

High Versus Low Carbon Footprint

Changing the foods that you serve can have a big impact on your event’s carbon footprint.

High Carbon Footprint

  • Beef
  • Lamb
  • Chicken

Lower Carbon Footprint

  • Eggs
  • Beans
  • Nuts
High Food Carbon Footprint

How can I check my event menu’s impact?

This is often difficult and time-consuming, so MeetGreen teamed up with Clear Current Consulting to develop a free Event Food Carbon Calculator to help event organizers. This calculator helps estimate the carbon impacts of food menu options, whether you are planning for a:

  • Family dinners
  • Social gatherings
  • Corporate event

How does the calculator work?

The dropdown menu allows you to choose different menu options for:

  • First course
  • Main course protein
  • Two main course sides

The user chooses menu items, and totals are updated with each new item selected. To easily identify foods with lower carbon impacts the carbon footprint is color-coded based on:

  • Green – Low
  • Yellow – Moderate
  • Red – High

How about beverages and snacks?

Fun facts are available for selecting your beverages as well as snacks. Spoiler: bad news for the chocolate lovers among us!

Have You Considered Your Snack

Can I save the information?

Absolutely, download a report by pushing a button and saving the information as a pdf for later use. Sharing the low-carbon impact of your menu is important to your:

  • Key stakeholders
  • Attendees
  • Organization’s CSR departments

Lower Your Event Food Carbon Footprint

We are all working together to lower our carbon footprint, especially in the event and meeting industry. It’s not always easy to know if we are doing the “right thing.” So, take the easy button and use the Event Food Carbon Calculator to create a low-carbon menu for yourself:

  • Community events
  • Weddings
  • Corporate events
Low Food Carbon Footprint

The calculator is for educational purposes and is intended to serve as a reasonable approximation and comparison of estimated impacts based on available data. The calculator is not intended for detailed carbon accounting. Customized carbon audits specific to your event can be provided on request.

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