The Food Environmental Impacts Simulator represents a significant expansion of the analytical work I’ve shared in previous blog articles. In those articles, we explored the environmental impacts of food consumption through detailed analyses and discussions, offering insights into how different diets affect the planet by focusing on the French case.
While these articles provided valuable information, they were dealing with the aggregate situation, including broader trends and averages rather than your individual behavior.
This article is part of a series. Click here to read the first article.
With the launch of this simulator, the idea is to take that analysis to the next level—making it more interactive and personalized. Instead of simply reading about the environmental impacts of food consumption, you can now actively engage with the data by inputting your own dietary habits. This allows you to see how your specific choices stack up against the broader population and gives you actionable insights tailored to your lifestyle. It can also put you on the map considering the gender dimension of your behaviors.
In essence, the simulator transforms the analysis of our previous content into a practical tool that puts you at the center. It’s designed to be more than just a passive reading experience; it’s an opportunity to explore, experiment, and understand the environmental consequences of your own food consumption patterns. By making the experience interactive, I aim to empower you to make informed decisions that contribute to a more sustainable future.
Click HERE to access the simulator
The simulator works best on a computer/laptop. I may develop a mobile-friendly version in the future.
To use the simulator, select the ‘Your Profile’ tab above and compile the information with the highest possible level of precision. Then, see the plots and analyses in the other tabs. It may take some time to switch between tabs once you completed your profile, please be patient, it should then be fluid.
This app uses real-world data from the French population to simulate your environmental impacts from food consumption. It proceeds in three major steps:
First it defines the quantities of food and beverage that you eat.
Then, it estimates the composition of your diet, classified into 10s of granular groups (e.g., beef, eggs…). In order to avoid user fatigue, the shares of these groups in your diet is estimated based on the types of meal you consume in a typical week (e.g., 2 meals with red meat, 1 with white meat, and 11 vegetearian meals). Quantities are then multiplied by these shares to get the consumed quantities for each group.
The quantities are themselves multiplied by environmental intensities for each type of impact, i.e., how much damage one kg of each food type does. The damages are then aggregated to get your full impacts
The source code is available on GitHub.
