A new feature article by Sarah Murray in the UK Financial Times looks at trade and the environment in perspective. She examines the long history of trade from the ingenious methods used by our ancestors to transport goods from all over the world to current demands for buying local and reducing carbon footprint.

Murray discusses the complexity of calculating the true carbon footprint of a particular good, including the use of carbon-heavy fertilisers, imported feed, and whether to include the high energy element of cooking and transporting from the supermarket to domestic home in calculating whether a raw potato has a heavier footprint than pre-packed mashed potato.

The simplicity of transportation, or "food miles" as a carbon measure is appealing to consumers but Murray speaks with many academics and business people as to the dangers of taking food-miles as a single ‘out of context' element in a complex process; one where for example the total carbon footprint of transported New Zealand lamb is lower than British lamb. That is not to mention the developmental benefits that trade of goods has with developing nations in areas such as Africa. According to the International Institute for Environment and Development the strong appetite of British consumers for fresh fruit and vegetables supports the livelihoods of over 1 million Africans, whilst only contributing to 0.1 per cent of total UK carbon emissions.

Full article available here [1]