The Green Feeding Tool calculates the carbon and water footprints of commercial milk formula (CMF) and helps illustrate the carbon offset that could be achieved by increasing breastfeeding and reducing commercial milk formula use.
Our global food system is increasingly recognised as contributing to environmental harm and climate change risk, especially meat and dairy. In addition, the booming sales of CMF worldwide contribute to this problem. Better enabling women to breastfeed their infants and young children will reduce CMF sales and help mitigate climate change.
The Green Feeding Tool builds on important pioneering work by the International Baby Food Network (IBFAN) and the Geneva Infant Feeding Association (GIFA), which shows the need for better country policies and programs to protect, support and promote breastfeeding. Making more visible the environmental importance of promoting and supporting breastfeeding will help to reduce the GHG emissions and water use, and other environmental harms which arise from CMF products displacing breastfeeding of infants and young children.
The Tool will be valuable to various users, including policymakers, advocates, researchers, national accountants and statisticians, and individual mother/baby dyads or their breastfeeding supporters. Providing country-level estimates of GHG emissions from CMF will help bring the importance of breastfeeding and achieving global breastfeeding targets to the attention of environmentalists and climate change scientists.
Photo: Le Huu Tho | Alive & Thrive
Also importantly, the Tool will assist in broader engagement with influential stakeholders by breastfeeding advocates. This user-friendly and open-access tool will help measure a country’s scope for mitigating GHG emissions and excess water use and inform updating of national policies, programmes and investment plans.
By helping to mobilise action and motivate upscaling of investments, the Tool will help ensure more significant investments and resources are allocated towards enabling women and children to realise their human rights, including breastfeeding. It can help make a case for considering country claims for breastfeeding protection, promotion or support as a carbon offset for international climate change funds such as the UN Clean Development Mechanism.
Watch the recording of the launch
Related
- Smith JP, Baker P, Mathisen R, Long A, Rollins N, Waring M. A proposal to recognize investment in breastfeeding as a carbon offset. Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 2024; 102:336-43. dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.23.290210
- Smith JP, Borg B, Nguyen TT, Iellamo A, Pramono A, Mathisen R. Estimating carbon and water footprints associated with commercial milk formula production and use: development and implications of the Green Feeding Climate Action Tool. Front Nutr. 2024; 11:1371036. doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1371036
- Smith, J.P. A commentary on the carbon footprint of milk formula: harms to planetary health and policy implications. Int Breastfeed J 14, 49 (2019). doi.org/10.1186/s13006-019-0243-8
- Dadhich J, Smith JP, Iellamo A, Suleiman A. Climate Change and Infant Nutrition: Estimates of Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Milk Formula Sold in Selected Asia Pacific Countries. Journal of Human Lactation. 2021;37(2):314-322. doi:10.1177/0890334421994769
- Smith JP, Borg B, Iellamo A, Nguyen TT and Mathisen. Innovative financing for a gender-equitable first-food system to mitigate greenhouse gas impacts of commercial milk formula: Investing in breastfeeding as a carbon offset. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 2023, Jun 26;7:1155279.doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1155279
- Q&A: The manufacture of breastmilk substitute products is pumping tons of CO2 into the atmosphere
- Website: Mothers' Milk Tool
- ‘Health for all’: A proposal to recognise breastfeeding as a carbon offset. ANU Media, 2024
- Supporting women to breastfeed can help reduce carbon emissions. ANU Health and Medicine, 2024
Research and Development Team Members
Australian National University
- Julie Smith, Honorary Associate Professor, College of Health and Medicine.
- Alessandro Iellamo, Independent Consultant, United Kingdom.
- Rene R. Raya, Programmer, Action for Economic Reforms (AER).
- Rose Ann L. Batuigas, Support Programmer, Social Watch Philippines (SWP).
- Bindi Borg, College of Health and Medicine
- Andini Pramono, College of Health and Medicine
FHI Solutions
- Roger Mathisen, Regional Director, Alive & Thrive East Asia Pacific
- Nguyen Thanh Tuan, Regional Technical Advisor, Measurement, Learning and Evaluation, Alive & Thrive East Asia Pacific
- Tran Thanh Nhat Khoa, Information Technology Consultant, Viet Nam
- Nguyen Hong Nhung, Consultant, Knowledge Management, Alive & Thrive East Asia Pacific
- Nguyen Thi Dieu Linh, Regional Program Associate, Knowledge Management, Alive & Thrive East Asia Pacific
This work was funded by FHI Solutions Innovation Incubator.
Project status
Current
Research centre
Project team
Principal investigator
Contacts
Dr Julie Smith
