The Slow Food USA Blog

Smaller Shoes to Fill

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by Winnie Yang

A compelling piece by Michael Specter in the February 25, 2008, issue of The New Yorker discusses the complexities of carbon footprints — specifically the economics of reducing environmental impact — and how corporations, researchers, and even investors are addressing the issue.

About a third of the article is devoted to the carbon footprint left by food systems. Much of this is stuff you might have heard or read before, but it's particularly useful to see it within a broader context. It's also nice to know that there are people out there, like Tesco's Sir Terry Leahy, who exercise a great deal of influence on their company's relatively large footprint as well as on its customers, and realize that they should take initiative in reducing it– and not wait for government regulators to step in when it becomes too late.