Putting the ‘Sustain’ into Sustainability

At the most literal level, what sustains us all is food. Get food right and you get a lot of other things right too.

Whilst the UK is famous for its agricultural landscape, much of the food we eat is imported or is grown out-of-season using energy and water-intensive techniques. Supply chains are long with the farmers at the end squeezed so that smaller producers and nature-friendly growers can struggle to make ends meet. Making the choice to eat organic, ethically produced food can be expensive, and for those on lower incomes, near impossible.

So, what can be done?

In our latest Carbon Copy Podcast episode, we explore how we can better sustain ourselves as well as our food system. All our guests, from Sustain to Growing Communities to Incredible Edible, speak about the importance of buying and eating locally, and how sourcing food directly from producers has significant positive impacts.

Local is a relative term. For Carrick Greengrocers in County Antrim, local sourcing means within a few miles. For London-based organisation, Growing Communities, it’s about creating a supply chain that links Londoners to local farmers within 70 to 100 miles of London. But the aim is the same: to make the link from farm to fork stronger and shorter.

Our connection with food is not simply measured in miles but is a more emotional one, as Beth Bell, co-founder of Carrick Greengrocers, explains:

“Our primary growers are called Chris’ Market Garden and Jubilee Farm, and they’re both within 5 or 6 miles of Carrickfergus. With Chris in particular: he will harvest in the morning and it’s on our shelves two hours later. There’s lots of important things about that, in terms of nutrition density and local food and soil health and all those things; but also, he does deliveries himself. So, he’ll be walking up the street with two big crates of beautiful bunches of baby carrots, with mud still on them, and people are interested! It gives people this immediate, authentic connection.”

The strength of feeling towards food is something that also serves to strengthen our feelings towards using natural resources more wisely and causing less harm to the environment. Like the other guests on the episode, Incredible Edible founder Pam Warhurst is passionate about using food as a way to engage people with issues around sustainability. In Pam’s words:

“We hope that by stimulating the interest and demand for local food growing we will be more resilient, more equipped for living with our changed climate. There is a way of doing food differently that gets people more active, more connected, healthier… you get food right, you get a lot of things right.”

Produce Local Food is the latest theme in the podcast series Do Something Bigger, which has been running throughout this year alongside Carbon Copy’s 25 Big Local Actions in 2025 campaign. If you’d like to explore other themes, then use our interactive tool to find the action that’s right for you.