Low carbon family: Food Miles

How many miles in your basket?

Throughout 2007 we have been following the progress of the Hawksworth family from Castle Donington in Leicestershire.

They are attempting to reduce their carbon footprint, and save money on their energy bills.

We've already worked out exactly how big the Hawksworths' carbon footprint is.

So far we have looked at the pros and cons of travelling by road compared with rail.

We've helped them in their search for a more environmentally friendly fridge.

And we've helped make their home greener with new loft insulation and filling their wall cavities.

Our experts have worked out how much they contribute to global warming and in our latest report, the Hawksworth family opt to stay in the UK instead of having a holiday in Spain.

You can see all of our previous reports from the links to the right of this page - look for the 'see also' section

Our latest report:

In this month's report, the Hawksworth family look at food miles.

We take a look at how many "food miles" the family's Sunday roast has travelled - and see how shopping locally can drastically reduce that amount.

The Hawksworth's shopped at their usual supermarket for a roast dinner and we counted the transportation food miles.

The Hawksworths food miles for their roast dinner added up to 23,376 miles, or 37,620km. That's the equivalent of 6.947.kg of CO2.

Using products bought from a local farm shop, the Hawksworths would have used just 3.97kg of CO2.

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In last month's report, Declan travelled to Devon with the Hawksworth family.

They wanted to go to Spain for their annual family holiday but instead decided to stay in the UK and go to Woolacombe in Devon.

Had the family decided to travel by air, their carbon footprint would have grown by 160kg of CO2 per minute flown according to IATA.

Flying makes up 5% of all the CO2 we produce, however that has doubled in 15 years, based on the findings of the Office for National Statistics.

There's concern it could well continue to grow. But the Hawksworths said there were a lot of positive aspects to staying in the UK for their annual holiday.