As pricey as a run to the grocery store has become, our grocery bills would be considerably more expensive if environmental costs were included, researchers say. The loss of species as cropland takes over habitat. Groundwater depletion. Greenhouse gases from manure and farm equipment.
For years, economists have been developing a system of “true cost accounting” based on a growing body of evidence about the environmental damage caused by different types of agriculture. Now, emerging research aims to translate this damage to the planet into dollar figures.
By displaying these so-called true prices, sometimes next to retail prices, researchers hope to nudge consumers, businesses, farmers and regulators to factor in the environmental toll of food.
Some governments are using this research to design policies that account for food’s environmental effects. New York State, for example, is working with Cornell University researchers to develop a tool to factor them into procurement decisions, rather than just picking the cheapest bid. And Denmark is introducing the world’s first tax on methane emitted by cows, pigs and sheep.
Beef has the highest environmental costs of the foods we examined, pound for pound, and it wasn’t close.
