Why grocery delivery or meal kits could lower your carbon footprint

By Scott Neuman,

Emily Kwong, Jessica Yung, Rebecca Ramirez

Published September 10, 2024 at 9:15 AM EDT

In some cases, food delivery can be a more climate-friendly option than cooking at home, which often requires multiple trips to the grocery store.

Climate change is affecting our food, and our food is affecting the climate. NPR is dedicating a week to stories and conversations about the search for solutions.

Since the height of the pandemic, there has been a boom in the use of food delivery services. It's no longer necessary to step foot in a grocery store, when you can easily order takeout from DoorDash, groceries from Instacart, meal kits from HelloFresh.

Day 2 of NPR's Climate Solutions Week is all about the environmental impact of how we shop for our food. So this episode, NPR correspondent Scott Neuman reports on a question we've all wanted to know the answer to: What is the impact of getting food delivered on our carbon footprint?

Interested in hearing more climate solutions? Email us at shortwave@npr.org – we'd love to hear your ideas!

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This episode was produced by Jessica Yung and edited by Rebecca Ramirez, who also checked the facts.