How green is your bread?

Simple question: how green is your bread? No, we’re not asking how mouldy it is (that’s another story). 

Does your bread get the green light when it comes to the environment?

We’re talking about the environmental friendliness of a simple loaf of white bread, and it’s an important question to ask, with around three-quarters of Australian shoppers buying bread each week. The answer can be pretty tricky, and you have a vital part to play in the final result.

Using a method known as a life cycle assessment, we can calculate the environmental impacts that occur throughout the bread’s existence.

To begin with, there are land use considerations from the biodiversity impact on native flora and fauna. Then there’s water use, and thankfully Australian rain-fed wheat crops use minimal additional water. But that isn’t the case for irrigated crops like sugarcane for the sugar that’s added to your jam (we’ll get back to that later).

Read the CSIRO story - “How green is your bread?”