Image Resource Paper: attitudes to reducing meat consumption This paper addresses the relationship between meat eating and climate change focusing on motivational explanations of environmentally-relevant consumer behavior. Based on a sample of 1083 Dutch consumers, it examines their responses to the idea that they can make a big difference to nature and climate protection by choosing one or more meals without meat every week. Read
Image Resource FOE report on consumption and land use This report says that Europe’s high consumption levels of products such as meat, dairy and textiles that require large areas of land, mean that Europe’s 'land footprint' remains one of the largest in the world. The report finds that the EU is importing the equivalent of 1,212,050 square kilometres to meet its demand for food. Read
Image Resource European Environment Agency approach on quantifying environmental pressures arising from European consumption and production A new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) describes methods for quantifying environmental pressures caused by European consumption patterns and economic production sectors, and shows the results from this approach. Read
Resource Paper concluding that healthier diets are not necessarily more sustainable than unhealthy diets. Read
Resource Greenpeace report on livestock There seems to be a strong focus on livestock at the moment. Greenpeace International has also entered the field now, with a new report, Ecological Livestock. Focusing on Europe, the report explores livestock production and consumption can be reduced to fit within ecological limits, such as biodiversity, climate change and water use. Read
Resource Conference materials: 'Reducing Europe’s land dependency and its impacts'. Europe’s land footprint is 640 million hectares a year – an area equivalent to 1.5 times the size of Europe itself. This is the land required to make everything that we consume, from food to material products to fuel. Read
Resource WWF/ Food Ethics Council report Prime Cuts: valuing the meat we eat WWF and the Food Ethics Council have jointly published a report which explores the whole idea of eating “less but better” meat. Read
Resource The Role of Diet in Phosphorous Demand A study conducted by researchers at McGill University, Canada, and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, shows that changing diets have accounted for a 38% increase in the world’s per capita ‘phosphorous footprint’ between 1961 and 2007. Researchers analyzed annual country-specific diet composition data to calculate the amount of phosphorous applied to food crops. Their findings indicate that a sustainable supply of the essential mineral is in question. Read
Image Resource Diet-Climate Connection radio project The "Humankind" series on National Public Radio has produced a series of stories about the interrelatedness of the foods we eat and climate change. Read
