Climate receipts have supported an already growing trend, “one in every five burgers sold is now vegetarian and the popularity of vegetarian meals generally has grown.”

A Norwegian online grocer has reported that orders for red meat and other carbon intensive products have fallen since it introduced climate receipts last January.

Oda, a startup based out of Oslo, and formerly known as Kolonial, worked with Cicero, a Norwegian climate research institute, to create carbon footprints that could help customers become more awre of their dietary choices.

They grouped each product into high, medium and low emissions so that every item on the bill gets a rating, which indicates the total carbon footprint of each purchase.

Louise Fuchs, sustainability director at Oda, told the Independent: “Our customers told us that they find it close to impossible to know what is climate-friendly.

“We thought it was an important challenge to solve so we started looking for easy ways to communicate emissions.

“We do not want to point fingers and tell our customers what to buy and what to avoid – climate receipts arrived because of what our customers asked for.”

While the food delivery company has seen a major drop in orders for red meat and other less sustainable goods, orders for plant-based meals have spiked.

More sustainable moves

To further its environmental goals, Oda also discontinued multi-buy deals on less sustainable foods to avoid unnecessary buying and consumption and switched to reusable cardboard boxes for deliveries instead of plastic bags.

Disclosing buying trends on the platform, Fuchs said that meat substitute orders have grown 80% year-on-year. Moreover, Oda customers now buy more than 50% more fruit and veg than the average consumer post the carbon receipts.

“We have had great feedback from the customers on the solution. It is supporting an already growing trend – one in every five burgers sold is now vegetarian and the popularity of vegetarian meals generally has grown,” Fuchs revealed.

“Lentil soup was one of our top ten sold recipes last year – the previous years it was nowhere near the top ten.”

She further added: “We were the first in Norway to create the climate receipt and a year after we have seen examples of other grocers following the trend.”

• Read: Meat industry pollution causes 90,000 premature deaths in China annually, new study finds

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Mohsina Dodhiya

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