ESU-services investigated several types of meals provided at home, in restaurants or canteens from an environmental point of view. The life cycle assessment of meals helps also to better understand the reduction potentials for environmental impacts due to organic products or vegetarian diet better than the comparison of single food items.

In 2009, 2.4 Earths would be required if everybody would live with our Swiss standards.  This way of living has no future because we consume more resources than what the earth can provide us. It is time to make our lifestyle more sustainable. Easier said than done? You can reduce your foodfootprint by 20% by eating meat only three times a week. If you eat meat 6 times a week, you can reduce it by 10%. The reason is that a vegetarian meal causes only half the impacts of a meal with meat.
WWF organised in September 2009 a Panda-lunch national day during which a vegetarian meal is offered at lunch in hospitals, kindergartens, schools and rest homes. In total, over 36'000 persons have decided to take part in this event. Individual person can also take part.
This action day is based on a study made by ESU on the environmental impacts of different canteen meals. The conclusion from this study is that vegetarian meals have lower impacts than a meal with meat.

ESU-services calculated the energy demand of two similar menus for a TV show. The only difference of the menus is the origin of ingredients. Once they come from Switzerland, for the other menu they are all imported. Watch the Kassensturz show "Weitgereiste Lebensmittel: Essen mit Beigeschmack." , Swiss TV SF1, 20.03.2007. Further information on LCA studies of food products can be found in several of our publications and in other media reports.