CO2 tool tests curry footprint
Supermarket lamb curry ready-made meals eaten in the UK amount to an annual carbon footprint equivalent to 5,500 car trips around the world, or 140 million car miles.
The figures were calculated using a carbon-footprinting tool known as CCaLC, developed by researchers at Manchester University in collaboration with over 20 industrial and other organisations.
The estimates - calculated to illustrate the tool - are based on the figure of 30 per cent of adults in the UK who eat ready-made meals at least once a week. Curry is one of the nation’s favourites, accounting for up to 10 per cent of ready-made sales.
The academics in the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science found that the fast-food meal generates the equivalent of 4.3kg of carbon-dioxide emissions per person.
The meal’s ingredients are responsible for 65 per cent of the carbon footprint, with lamb contributing half of the total. Meal manufacture contributes on average 14 per cent and packaging four per cent of the total carbon footprint.
The contribution of transport is small, at two per cent. However, storage at the retailer contributes 16 per cent.
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