Long-distance trade is often blamed for creating more emissions and we are encouraged to buy local products. After reviewing the research, Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data writes: ‘While it might make one intuitively – after all, transport does lead to emissions – it is one of the most misguided pieces of advice.’ The reason it sounds intuitive is that we overestimate the environmental impact of transport compared to other factors. According to a review of the average European diet, transportation does not account for more than 6 per cent of the average grocery bag’s climate impact, and much of it is the last mile – from store to home. The rest coms from land use, production and storage. Surveys of such diverse goods as shoes, beer and iPads show similar results – nine-tenths of the emissions come from something other than trade. This means that the green choice may counter-intuitively be to buy something from the other side of the globe if it can be produced in a little more environmentally friendly way than it can locally, such as onions from New Zealand or roses from Kenya instead of from the Netherlands, where the same rose gives rise to emissions more than five times larger.
Long-distance trade is often blamed for creating more emissions and we are encouraged to buy local products. After reviewing the research, Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data writes: ‘While it might make one intuitively – after all, transport does lead to emissions – it is one of the most misguided pieces of advice.’ The reason it sounds intuitive is that we overestimate the environmental impact of transport compared to other factors. According to a review of the average European diet, transportation does not account for more than 6 per cent of the average grocery bag’s climate impact, and much of it is the last mile – from store to home. The rest coms from land use, production and storage. Surveys of such diverse goods as shoes, beer and iPads show similar results – nine-tenths of the emissions come from something other than trade. This means that the green choice may counter-intuitively be to buy something from the other side of the globe if it can be produced in a little more environmentally friendly way than it can locally, such as onions from New Zealand or roses from Kenya instead of from the Netherlands, where the same rose gives rise to emissions more than five times larger.
