Environmental impact of diets

By working with data from the Shrink Our Footprint website (UN Food and Agricultural Organization), Laura Ham has been able to make a data visualisation on the growth of the national carbon footprint per country, between 1961 and 2013. ‘It’s incredible to see the global impact of diet choices like eating beef or eating vegan on the C02 emissions per capita’, she says.

In her visualisation, Ham illustrates, via a timeline, the upward current of both daily calory intake and emissions. The increase in consumption and imports is made strikingly visible. 

Ham has done a data exploration of the dilemma in choosing food when taking health and the carbon footprint into account. Food is something that interests Ham a lot; especially in regards to the ethical choices and subsequent consequences. She has started working with visualisations to show people the true impact of our food choices.

Another aspect that came to light during Ham’s research is the enormous amount of food that is wasted. In the United States, for example, the average food supply for one person, per day is 3900 kcal while the average food intake is around 2600 kcal per person per day. In the chain between the producer and our plate, about one-third of what is produced goes to waste.

Laura studies a double degree, offered by EIT Digital, of which the first year took place at the University of Twente (NL) and the second year of the program is at Aalto University. The program is both technical and practical and includes a human perspective on ICT. 

Socially engaged projects are very important to Ham, so she always tries to choose sources that have a societal aspect, ‘I am interested in storytelling via data visualisations with which I can tell a story that then motivates others into action’.

Laura Ham
Aalto University School of Science
ICT innovation, Human-computer interaction, and design
Environmental Impact of Diets