Road transport makes up most of the carbon footprint of food miles

Food miles — moving products from farms to processors to consumers — contribute just 5% to 6% of the greenhouse gas emissions from food. Instead, most emissions come from land use change or emissions on the farm.

Within food miles, people often assume that international freight accounts for most of the climate impact. In reality, most of these emissions come from domestic delivery trucks on the road.

In the chart, you can see the breakdown of transport’s 5% of food emissions. Road transport represents 3.9%, compared to just 0.02% from aviation. This is based on data from a 2021 study by researchers M. Crippa and colleagues.

International food miles are just a small share of emissions because very little food is flown by air, and transporting goods by boat is much more carbon-efficient than by road.

(This Daily Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie.)