Blasda is delighted to be supported by the Climate Challenge Fund.

The Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) was launched by the Scottish Government in 2008, to help Scottish communities tackle climate change. To date more than £40m has been awarded to 382 community groups across Scotland. To be eligible for CCF grants, projects must be community-led, aim to achieve a realistic and measurable carbon reduction and leave a sustainable legacy.

So far, 196 community-led projects dealing with local food have received grants totaling almost £17 million. Keep Scotland Beautiful is responsible for administration of the scheme and provides additional support as community groups develop, manage and report on their CCF projects. There is still significant CCF funding available and groups interested in applying can find more information here.

Growing food locally can reduce the distance food travels and the fertilisers and pesticides which are used. It can also make us much more aware of seasonality – eating what is grown close by. Here’s some local food stats for you to help create a more carbon-friendly diet:

• Reduce the amount of food that is wasted, for example, by using leftovers and planning meals.

 Scottish households produce around 566,000 tonnes of food waste every year, and this equates to embodied emissions of around 2 million tonnes of CO2e that was emitted in producing the food.

•  Eat less ‘high carbon’ food, and more ‘low carbon’ food, such as vegetables and cereals.

Even small changes to our diets can make big changes to our emissions. Vegetables and cereals tend to have low associated emissions, and a diet based on these foods will generally have low climate change impacts (though seasonality and transportation should be borne in mind too).

A more climate friendly menu could also mean a tastier, more nutritious diet than many of us eat at the moment – and it could be cheaper too. For meat and dairy products, it could include eating less overall but choosing higher quality products. For fruit and vegetables a climate friendly menu will vary through the year, adding interest to our meals and reconnecting us to the seasons.

• Eat food that is in season.

It’s about re-connecting to place and to the rhythms and cycles of nature

• Eat food that is more locally produced.

Growing food locally can reduce emissions, where it reduces the distance food travels – so long as extra inputs (such as greenhouse heating, artificial fertilisers, and transport to allotments) do not outweigh the benefits. Food freshly harvested from gardens and allotments will also avoid the refrigeration used when storing and transporting fruit and vegetables.

•  Less processed and less traveled is generally better.

The transport of our food accounted for about 19 million tCO2e in 2002, of which 10 million tonnes were emitted within the UK, representing 8.7% of total emissions in the UK road sector. The other 9 million tCO2e is emitted getting this food to the UK.

Food refrigeration is also an important source of emissions throughout the food chain. This includes the storage, distribution, retailing and home storage of perishable foods including fruit and vegetables, chilled products and frozen goods. It is estimated that the ‘cold chain’ accounts for around 15% of total food chain emissions.