Report shows Aussies’ love of chocolate, coffee and red meat comes at a high cost to the planet

A new report from The George Institute for Global Health shows shoppers’ top grocery picks of red meat, chocolate and coffee are often the products generating the highest rates of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia’s packaged food supply.¹

The FoodSwitch State of the Food Supply Report: Planetary Health Edition analysed ingredients from 25,780 food and beverage products for sale in the five major grocery retailers - ALDI, Coles, Harris Farm, Independent Grocers of Australia (IGA) and Woolworths - to calculate estimated greenhouse gas emissions generated by their production.

Each item is assigned a Planetary Health Rating, which shoppers can view using the Institute’s purpose-built ecoSwitch app. Products with low Planetary Health Ratings are worse than those with high ratings when it comes to their impact on the climate, compared to similar products.

What the 2025 FoodSwitch State of the Food Supply Report: Planetary Health Edition found

Australia’s food supply has an average overall Planetary Health Rating of just 2.5 stars out of a possible maximum of 5 stars and:

• Fewer than half the major food categories scored an average rating of more than 2.5 stars
• The lowest scoring food category was red meat, with a rating of just 0.7 stars
• Coffee was the poorest performing beverage, with a Planetary Health Rating of 1.6 stars
• Chocolate confectionery fared worse at 1.4 stars than other sugary treats, which averaged 2.7 stars
• Highest scorers (after plain bottled water at 5 stars) were fresh fruit and vegetables, and dairy-free yoghurts, with both categories scoring an average of 3.6 stars

Professor Simone Pettigrew, Head of Health Promotion at The George Institute for Global Health and Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney, said the report will give consumers the information they need to make more sustainable food choices at the supermarket, given a lack of transparency about emissions on labels.

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Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and greenhouse gases from food production are responsible for a colossal one third of the total emissions going into the atmosphere.

Australians are deeply concerned about the climate, and many people want to do the right thing. But it’s hard to know which products are more sustainable when that information is not available on pack.

Through the report, and our commitment to the ecoSwitch app, we’re putting the power to identify options with lower impact on the planet into the hands of consumers.

By:

Professor Simone Pettigrew

Head of Health Promotion at The George Institute for Global Health and Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney

To show the difference consumers can make, researchers showed how swapping meat and dairy products in a typical weekly grocery shop for more plant-based options can save over 6,000kg in greenhouse gas emissions per year, the equivalent of driving to and from Perth to Sydney (24,000km) three times.

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Australians love meat and we’re eating more and more of it. But we can achieve a significant reduction in the climate impact of our shopping over time by regularly switching the beef or lamb for seafood, chicken or a plant-based meat alternative, and sometimes choosing a plant-based milk.

There is also a direct correlation between the level of processing in packaged foods and the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, so eating more fresh fruit and vegetables is an even better choice for the planet and for our health, too.

By:

Professor Simone Pettigrew

In Australia, there is no requirement to provide greenhouse gas emissions information on food labelling.

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In the future, we hope that the data and ratings we use in ecoSwitch could inform a national front-of-pack labelling system to provide more information for all consumers, and to incentivise industry and supermarkets to meet the demand for more sustainable foods.

By:

Professor Simone Pettigrew

About the Planetary Health Rating

International organisations such as the United Nations have called for more sustainable food systems that are kind to the planet as well as good for human health. To support this aim, researchers at The George Institute developed a method for estimating the greenhouse gas emissions of individual packaged food and beverage products, and created a simple rating system that converts these estimates into an easy-to-understand Planetary Health Rating.²

Like Australia’s Health Star Rating, products are rated from 0.5 stars (worse for the planet) to 5 stars (better for the planet) with respect to their impact on the climate. The Planetary Health Rating system is integrated into ecoSwitch, a smartphone app that allows consumers to see how foods rate and shows similar products with a lower impact, alongside nutritional information and the Health Star Rating.

The George Institute is working to incorporate other factors like land and water use into ecoSwitch to assess the overall environmental impact of foods, and to extend the parts of the food journey for which emissions are counted (i.e. beyond ‘the farm gate’). There are also plans to make ecoSwitch available in other countries. ecoSwitch was a finalist in the 35th National Banksia Sustainability Awards in 2024.

ecoSwitch can be downloaded for free from Android and iOS (Australia only).

References:

1. 2025 FoodSwitch State of the Food Supply Report: Planetary Health Edition. The George Institute for Global Health.

2. Gaines, A. M. et al. A novel approach to estimate product-specific greenhouse gas emissions for 23,550 Australian packaged foods and beverages. Journal of Cleaner Production 425, 138816 (2023)