Plates for the Planet

Climate change is a huge deal - and food is part of it. How can we eat in a more environmentally friendly way? And how can we change our diets in a way that is fair for everyone?

Since food is such a big part of our everyday lives, it's important to find out what people think, and the more people the better! Researchers from the University of Bath, Kath and Thalia are exploring how people of all ages think about food and the possible ways that the government could encourage people to eat more sustainably.

They wanted to find out what changes people thought would be the most effective in reducing the environmental impact of food, and the most fair to everyone.

Over the course of five months, visitors of We The Curious took part in the 'Plates for the Planet' activity and made thousands of contributions to their research by voting, joining workshops, writing postcards, suggesting policies and making meals.

Thalia introduces the Plates for the Planet programme

How does food impact the planet?

The impact from food can happen in lots of different ways, including -

The amount of fresh water needed to grow the food
Fuels needed to move it from farm to shop
Cutting down trees to make room for farms and livestock
The burps and farts from animals that make gases that warm up the planet.

Some researchers have collected lots and lots of data to work out the climate impact of different foods. And there are some big differences as seen in this set of climate food flashcards. For example, a 100g beef steak can make the same amount of impact on the planet as a half an hour drive, while a banana is the same as only twenty seconds!

These cards show how many minutes of driving each type of food is equivalent to.

How could we reduce the environmental impact from food?

If we are to tackle climate change, we as a society need to find ways to adjust our diets to reduce the impact from food. There are a few ways that governments could encourage people to eat in a more low impact way such as...

Changing menus in places like schools and hospitals to have more low impact options and/or fewer high impact foods.
Changing the prices of foods, for example making high impact foods like beef more expensive with taxes, and/ or providing subsidies to make low impact foods like fruits and veg cheaper.
Increasing the amount of available information about the climate impact of food, for example printing the climate impact onto packaging.

These are changes could affect everyday life for everyone, so it's important to find out what people think about them. Researchers from the University of Bath, Kath and Thalia wanted to know how people of all ages think about food choices and these possible changes.

We teamed up to create 'Plates for the Planet' to explore how schools, shops, and cafes might look like if these changes became a reality.

In Open City Lab we took a peek into a possible future...

Visitors could get involved in lots of ways. For example, visitors could make their dream school meal and compare it to what they would be able to have if menus limited the number of high impact food options. In the mock shop, visitors could choose a sandwich and see what packaging might look like if there was more information available about the food's climate impact. There was also a café where the menu prices could be cheaper for low impact foods, or higher for high impact foods. Visitors could also pretend to be Prime Minister and create their own laws to help the planet.

This special sandwich packaging showed the climate impact of different fillings.

Children shared their choices from a menu with researcher Thalia.

If you were prime minister, what would you do to help the environment? These children shared their ideas on the giant scroll.

What would you think of a school menu that limited the number of high impact foods you could have for lunch?

The polling station was open to all ages to vote for which food policies they thought would work, and were fair to everyone.

Visitors could write their questions and ideas for Kath and Thalia on postcards...

... and Kath enjoyed reading and writing lots of replies to your postcards.

What's next?

Over all the activities, you made literally thousands of contributions by voting, joining workshops, drawing and writing postcards, suggesting policies and making school lunches. Kath and Thalia are currently working their way through all of your exciting thoughts, suggestions and curious questions and have already written some replies to your postcard messages.

Here are some of the postcards you wrote and the researchers' replies...

There were hundreds of postcards with thoughtful comments and questions, here are just a few of them covering topics from lab grown meat to a shared love of pasta.

Outside of the lab we also explored how communities could come together to grow food sustainably. We found out how Redcatch Community Garden was created and how they help their community grow food sustainably from one of the founders Mike.

OpenCityResearch · What can a community garden do for food and sustainability?

Thanks to all of our visitors who took part! We can't wait to catch up with Thalia and Kath to see what a difference you have made to their research - watch this space!

With thanks to...

Our research partners Prof. Thalia Gjersoe and Dr Kath Lee from the University of Bath, Mike Cardwell from Redcatch Community Garden, and all our visitors who contributed to this research! Image credits to Woven films, and audio editing by Storm Neech. Climate Food Flash Cards kindly provided by the 'Take a Bite out of Climate Change' group.