Visualizing Carbon Footprint from School Meals

Food is a major contributor of greenhouse gases in the world. Changing what you eat to a less greenhouse gas intensive diet can have a major impact on the greenhouse gas emission. While campaigns and efforts about changing diets directed towards individuals have a potential to reduce total greenhouse gases, efforts directed towards institutional producers of meals have much greater potential to have impact since just a few key players need to be affected. In this paper, we describe a system we have developed for calculating carbon footprint for school meals, making it possible for decisions makers to compare schools with each other, and identify schools with both low footprint (who can serve as good examples) and schools with high footprints (who have the greatest possibility to change). Preliminary results from 10 schools in the Stockholm area are also presented. Keywords— Sustainable HCI; Food; Climate change; Quantified self; Behavior change