Increase in greenhouse gas emissions during the last century has led to remarkable changes in our environment
and climate system. Many policy measures have been developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the
world, many of which require our lifestyle changes from energy-intensive to energy-saving. One of the changes in
our living patterns is to consider food miles. A food mile is the distance food travels from where it is produced to
where it is consumed. Providing information of food miles will help people choose low mileage food, helping
promote a “green consumption” action and lead to a low carbon society with emission reduction systems. In this
study, 10 items are selected from 23 Harmonized commodity description and 2-digit coding system (HS) to estimate
their food miles, and CO2 emissions released in the transportation of imported food. For the estimation, four
countries are chosen-Korea, Japan, United Kingdom (UK) and France, with Korea and Japan’s 2001, 2003, and
2007 trade statistics and UK and France’s 2003 and 2007 trade statistics used. As a result, Korea showed in 2007
the highest level of food miles and CO2 emissions per capita among 4 countries. That suggests that Korea should
make an effort to purchase local food to reduce food miles and use low-carbon vehicles for food transport, contributing
to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.