Every project dealing with food is considering "Zero Km" as a must-do consideration in framing a correct and sustainable intervention.

Zero Km is based on Andrea Paxton's definition of "food miles" - which refers to the distance food is transported from production to consumers. It refers to the ideal situation in which food is consumed right in the place in which is produced (unrealistic). Food miles are one factor used to determine the environmental impact of food and it is sometime reported as carbon emissions on food label.

Just to have an idea, the average meal travels for more than 1.900 km to arrive on our table. That's why every food related company is promoting "Zero Km" products, to give itself a "green halo".

Recent results of a research Martina Bartoli is doing for her thesis project - which I'm tutoring - show the limits of using the food miles as indicator of low environmental impact. In fact transportation is just one of the factor contributing to pollution - together with production, transformation, processing, breeding and packaging - and it is estimated to contribute for the 19% "only".

Transportation impact then varies a lot depending on the mean of transportation, from the 55kg per food ton of CO2 of a traditional ship to the 570kg per ton of a jet airplane.

From these considerations derives a contradictory and counterproductive situation: as if we compare 2 tons of lamb meat consumed by a Londonian, one arriving from New Zealand and one from the neighborhood of the city. In spite of the fact that the first comes in UK after a 18.000km long boat trip, it is far more "sustainable" than the local lamb meat: considering all factors the first produces an impact of 689 kg of CO2, while the second something like 2.848 kg.

images by Martina Bartoli