The carbon footprint of Potatoes
Carbonle#5 of 43🥔Carbon footprintPotatoes
0.46kg CO₂e / kg
One of the lightest foods there is
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A kilogram of Potatoes works out to about 0.46 kg CO₂e (kg CO₂e / kg).
That lands it #5 of the 43 foods on Carbonle, one of the lightest.
The number is a farm-to-shop average. It counts land use, growing, feed, processing, transport, retail and packaging, with methane folded in as its CO₂ equivalent.
Few foods come in lighter. You're down with the fruit and veg.
Growing a kilo throws off about as much CO₂ as a 3 km drive in a diesel car.
Cheap on carbon, heavy on calories. Storage is the main cost once it's grown.
Eat it freely. This is the kind of food a low-carbon plate is built on.
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Figures from OWID / Poore & Nemecek 2018, licensed CC-BY 4.0.
How we get these numbers: Methodology.