What is our ecological footprint?

It's challenging to pinpoint exactly when conservation and resources entered the industry's area of ​​interest. It's hard to believe, but in the last decade, most industries have made significant progress in recouping their expenses. This doesn't mean our efforts should stop here.

For years, scientists have wondered how we could build a reliable tool that could determine the impact of our presence on the environment.

Calculating the ecological footprint can also be a step forward towards greater transparency. As a measurement tool, it essentially helps us estimate the impact that certain products have on the environment. However, it goes beyond simply analyzing where resources came from and how they are used at the end of the production processes.

What is an ecological footprint?

The ecological footprint analyzes the scarcity of resources, their abundance in the environment, and the effect on the planet due to their use. With the resources we have today, it is already possible, through an online calculator , to know what our personal ecological footprint is.

How does this relate to Equal Food?

For companies, this means that we not only need to achieve zero-waste production, but also the responsible use of their materials. And how does this relate to Equal Food? Although we are not farmers or producers, we always have to ensure that our products come from a reliable source and that we cause the least possible ecological impact!

Choosing products

So, let's assess the first part of Equal Food's ecological footprint. Starting with the most important: we receive fruits and vegetables considered imperfect that farmers cannot sell due to their aesthetic appearance (color, size, and shape) or simply because they had a larger production than their customers want to buy, resulting in overproduction.

Their traditional customers (e.g., supermarkets) place great importance on aesthetic quality, which means they end up rejecting fruits and vegetables that do not meet beauty standards.

Furthermore, farmers often face the challenge of selling their greener produce (believe it or not) because it will still take some time for them to travel from the farms to warehouses, from warehouses to smaller warehouses, from smaller warehouses to supermarkets, and from supermarkets to your shopping cart. Therefore, when faced with imperfect, overly green, or surplus produce, many farmers lacked the tools to sell part of their harvest!

How does Equal Food help?

And this is where we come in! We buy these products from their harvests, helping farmers generate additional income. Furthermore, by buying this harvest, we ensure that no food is wasted, resources like water (which makes the products grow) are not wasted, and that CO2 emissions are not wasted (electricity, vehicles, etc.).

In short, with your help we are able to collect all this food that would normally be wasted and ensure that all these resources (which are not infinite) are not wasted.

To give you an idea of ​​the scale of the impact that the Equal Food Community has had in the last 2 years, we have included our table below: