What Was Our Environmental Impact Whilst Filming Two Runners Run the Length of Wales

What Was Our Environmental Impact Whilst Filming Two Runners Run the Length of Wales

What is this all about then? Well, since we're trying to reduce our environmental footprint, we thought we would continue to learn more about our impact on the planet and the environment during our filming jobs and see what our environmental impact is during a single event.

There are plenty of stats, some worrying research and personal observations, yes it does get a little personal, we believe it has to if you really want to see change and we hope you can take something positive from this article.

What this article is not.

I will not go in to what corporations and big business are doing or not doing, but rather what we personally did on a multi-day running event, as every action of ours will have a demand on the planet and we believe it is something we can reduce quite easily in our day to day lives without much thought.

Beyond that, we can then pursue what businesses, countries and traditions are doing knowing that we are continually doing the best we can as changing our demands to more sustainable processes does not stop us from pursuing further injustices, but can actually help us learn more about the wider world.

In this article, we will cover more than just greenhouse gases, why? Our environmental impact goes far beyond that of just an emission.

You will usually see "environmental" numbers be represented in terms of co2, methane, nitrous oxide (all naturally occurring gases and we refer to them combined as co2e throughout this article) which of course, each and every one of us should be reducing and aiming for a one planet target and sustainable number.

GHGs are just one part of the problem, and in our opinion, a much smaller issue than that of the biosphere, environmental issues we are causing and destruction of our natural world.

We mostly all forget that our environment is made up of natural habitats, the ocean, fresh water systems such as rivers and wetlands. We run through ancient forests, we watch and listen for biodiversity from the smallest phytoplankton to the largest mega fauna and anything and everything in-between.

What you may not realise is that the natural world, the wild places, our environment, is our biggest carbon sink and it is the place that we all head to as trail and ultra runners to escape and connect with the world.

When it comes to carbon capture, our environment far exceeds anything that we have tried to recreate technologically so far.

And in our opinion it is why it would be dangerous and ignorant to look at just a greenhouse gases as the only type of environmental impact we have.

What is closest to our hearts at Kelp and Fern is that of the natural world and all of its magical and mysterious wonders. And to stay on-topic and in terms of trail and ultra running, it would be naive to ignore the landscapes and environments we love to run in.

That is why we will also include our total environmental footprint and research the impact we have on land and waterways as well as our emissions.

We will categorise these impacts as eutrophicationacidification and land use.

 

What Do We Calculate During a 4 Day Documentary Film Shoot

This is where we talk about our impact on the environment and what we did that made the impact.

We will calculate the environmental impact of two vegan runners (that we filmed) and ourselves as 1 vegan runner. There are two of us at Kelp and Fern and we too also ate vegan but were sedentary and we only required the usual 2000 calories to function each day.

For this research and to give context, we are 3 vegans runners (in terms of calories), two were running in the multi-day ultra marathon and two of us were filming.

We compare each persons environmental demands to one non-vegan runner (for comparison reasons and to give context) who also partook in the same ultra-marathon race.

We started at 6am on Thursday morning and finished at 23:00 on Sunday evening, 4 full days running and filming.

This means we are going to work out the numbers and impact based off of what we did specifically for that time frame of 4 full days.

We drove a van a little under 250 miles (400km) in total. This means we will be working out the emissions caused by our van driving 40mpg over this distance (we get anywhere from 38-42mpg on average).

For every km driven, that equates to 167g/co2. 

The most environmental intensive issues of filming are getting to and moving around on location in a vehicle and under our own power and what we eat to keep our energy up and sustain ourselve's.

We ate 3 meals a day, a total of 12 meals throughout the event as we followed Gordon and Vic on their epic journey.

We charged our camera, audio gear from renewable technology as we run the living area of the van off of solar panels. So anything that was used to film and record the event were charged off of the sun. We were very lucky with the warm weather and had no issues doing this.

We ran audio recording devices, multiple cameras, lighting and all have capabilities to charge off of the renewables on the van and thus we deem the demand of this zero. This is due to our renewables lasting us decades and they were only built once and will be used tens of thousands of times over their lifespan.

Obviously there was an environmental impact and carbon emissions created for the solar panels, wiring, batteries but we have had this setup for well over a year and continue to use it day in and day out for our filming work but we expect this setup to continue working for us for decades to come.

We could also include the distance driven to and from the event, but the two runners we filmed live not only in Wales, where the race was held, but lived just an hour or so drive from the start line.

Every other runner in the event lived much further away and we are only comparing what we could control during the four days filming and running, not what happened before or after. We do get in to transport to and from a race event later in the article if you are interested in working out your emissions and environmental impact from your racing.

 

Green House Gas Emissions for our Energy Requirements and Co2e

Lets get straight in to the numbers and our demand over four days.

The Vehicle To Transport Us

Vehicle total carbon emissions: 28.4kg co2e (250miles at 40mpg)

That is a total of 28.4kg of co2e created by driving the distance we did with this specific vehicle through Wales.

The Two Vegans Filming

Vegan (non-active) 2.89kg co2e [4] per day per person at 2000 calories * 4 days = 11.56kg co2e 

If we double this, we can get the number for two non-active vegans (which is us) who were filming the event and this would come out to 23.12kg of co2e as our total diets emissions.

The Two Vegans Running The Race

Vegan: (active runner) 2.89kg co2e [4] per day for 2000 calories (x4 for 2 runners eating double these calories)

(5.78kg co2e @ 4000 calories) 5.78kg co2e a day * 4 days = 23.12kg co2e ​​​​​​

Above we can see that a single vegan runner with double the calorie requirements of us filming would create 23.12kg of co2e over the four days of the race for one vegan runner.

Doubling this for the two runners would put their carbon footprint at 46.24kg co2e for the entire four day race.

The One Non-Vegan Running The Race

Non-Vegan (active runner): 7.19kg co2e [4] per day for 2000 calories (4) =  (14.38 co2e 4000 calories) 14.38kg co2e a day * 4 days = 57.52kg co2e 

Above we have calculated that each runner has had double the standard calorie intake of a sedentary human at 2000 calories energy requirements. [4] [8]

Over the 4 days events, the two vegan runners will have had over 2.5 times smaller carbon emissions from food alone compared to a non-vegan based on 4000 calories requirements each.

We also understand that Gordon and Vic did not eat much, if anything on the final day and night of the event, but we have not calculated for that to show just how much more a non-vegan diet has on carbon emissions alone.

We also understand that some runners did go in to pubs, cafes, bakeries, fast food restaurants and consume beef, steak and similar animals foods which justifies the higher co2e emissions of a meat-heavy diet.

 

Green House Gas Emissions Comparison in Numbers

To simplify things, here is the comparison of 2 vegan runners running a 4 day ultra marathon compared to one non-vegan runner running the same event.

2 Vegan Runners Total: 46.24kg of co2e

1 Meat Eating Runner Total: 57.52kg of co2e

If we were to compare just two vegan runners to a normal meat eater on a 4 day running event, it is quite clear that the two vegan runners still have a much smaller impact and emission output compared to the meat eater, even when combining their energy and food requirements. 

You could actually include myself, a vegan on 2000 calories at 11.56kg of co2e produced over 4 days with the two runners on a vegan diet, equating to 3 people (two at 4000 calories and one at 2000 calories per day) in comparison and be the exact same as one runner on a meat eating diet over those four days of the event.

2 vegan runners and 1 sedentary vegan total: 57.80kg of co2e 

1 Meat Eating Runner Total: 57.52kg of co2e

That is pretty damning for the meat eater, having had three other people on a vegan diet to be comparable to in terms of co2e.

If we looked at this in terms of carbon output for calories, it means that 10,000 calories on a vegan diet is the same as having just 4000 calories on a meat eating diet.

Here we will look at our total numbers of the 2 film crew, 2 runners and vehicle.

4 vegans and vehicle total: 97.96kg co2e

1 Meat Eating Runner Total: 57.52kg of co2e

As a team of four people, and including our vehicle and it driving us the length of the race, we finally overtake the single meat eating runner and have a combined co2e of 97.96kg from the 4 day event.

In fact, the non-vegan individual produces 58% of our carbon emissions in comparison to the rest of our energy requirements which include ourselves filming, the runners and the vehicles entire energy demands.

That is well more than half of our entire co2e emissions for just one non-vegans food intake over 4 days.

 

The Environment is More Than Just Co2e and Green House Gas Emissions

Our environmental impact only starts with our GHG emissions, we have gone through the co2e numbers, now we will look at the environmental impact of our energy demands.

What continually needs repeating, is that our current biosphere and environmental issues do not start or stop with carbon emissions.

Our natural world is our biggest carbon sink, the birds and the bees and the natural environments that they rely on, all help with mitigating and sequestering carbon emissions.

We rely on the natural world for the air we breath, the water we drink, the food that we need, our mental health and so much more.

Below we will cover actual environmental issues caused by our energy requirements through the 4 days.

 

Acidification and Eutrophication of Water

What is eutrophication? Below we explain:

Excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to run-off from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life.

You may be asking, why is this bad? The plant life that grows from the extra nutrients flowing in to the river, lake or ocean will starve that section of water of oxygen. This means that anything else that also requires oxygen, which is pretty much every form of life, will suffocate and die. You can look at a river and see a shimmering surface, you may have no idea that underneath that mirror there might be zero life.

Why do we look at eutrophication? Our impact throughout this race directly affects such things, by consuming and demanding chicken or eggs in a sandwich, we are driving and pursuing further degradation of our river systems and also creating ocean dead zones.

Food production creates ~32% of global terrestrial acidification and ~78% of eutrophication worldwide. [10]

As shown above in the quote from Joseph Poore and the largest study ever on farming, almost four out of every five nutrient and eutrophication issues on the planet are caused by agriculture, with the leading cause of that coming from animal-ag.

But why is this important? Firstly it is our environmental impact and secondly, a car, a train, a plane and most of transport that we are told to look at, simply do not affect the land and waterways like our food does. Take everything that we do in to account on the planet other than that of growing food and combined they only make up 22% of all eutrophication issues in our waterways.

We are not saying that they don't have an affect, materials are mined from lands around the earth, our tyres degrade, pollutants come out of our exhaust which affect air quality and both of these things sit on the road and then get washed down drain systems in to our rivers and oceans when the next rainstorm comes and affect these environments negatively.

It is important to understand this and yet, these impacts do not come anywhere near close to that animal-agriculture when eutrophication of our water is concerned.

Moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products has transformative potential, reducing acidification by 50% (45 to 54%); eutrophication by 49% (37 to 56%); [10]

As you can see, from the study linked below [10] we can reduce our eutrophication issues by half if we were to swap an animal food for a plant food.

Our Impact on Driving Eutrophication Over The Four Days

In terms of our impact during the four days, the two vegan runners combined would have the same eutrophication and acidification amounts as that of the one non-vegan runner.

Due to the non-vegan runner consuming upwards of 4000 calories in a day, adding the two sedentary vegans (us filming) would only have a slightly more detrimental contribution to that of eutrophication and acidification of waterways.

You will notice we haven't included the vans figures in this section as eutrophication is that of excess nutrients (of which a vehicle does not produce) running in to a water way, river, stream or ocean and the process that follows depletes that area of oxygen.

 

Land Use

How much land did the demands of four days running through a country require?

Moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products has transformative potential, reducing food’s land use by 3.1 (2.8 to 3.3) billion ha (a 76% reduction) [10]

Why do we look at land use? As an analysis of a running documentary, this is one of the most important factors to consider in terms of environmental impact in our opinion.

We ran through Wales, over land and that land has been heavily impacted by what we eat.

Most would state is a beautiful country, and in part, this is true and in part we would agree, but when looking at the countries land mass as a whole, it couldn't be further from the truth.

In Wales, more than 80% of land use is covered by farming, with forestry utilising a further 12-14%. [11]

That means that over 90% of Wales' entire landmass is made up of non-natural and non-wild habitats, that we have destroyed and replaced. 

One of the most horrible stats about Wales' land is that only 4% of it is made up of broadleaf ancient woodland. That is a total of 94 thousand hectares, which sounds like a lot, but not when Wales is well over 2 million hectares in size. [19] 

If you are to imagine an area as far as the eyes can see and 92% of that is taken up by farming with only a tiny section spared for natural habitats, you can clearly see why Wales really isn't that wild of a place, in fact it is the complete opposite, it is a dead landscape made up of nicely shaped hills and mountains.

And it is the shapes that we believe people believe are beautiful, without looking in to what is or is not within those landscapes.

This is one of the main reasons we are sharing this environmental impact of our film making, we want to turn Wales and the rest of the world in to a more natural place for those that follow.

As a trail and ultra runner, does this not sound like heaven for most if not all of us? At the moment, we are continuuing to drive destruction of our natural world by demanding animal products to eat.

Land Use Comparison Between Vegan Runners and Non-Vegans

When comparing the land use numbers, our impact as 4 vegans, in terms of land use was almost identical to one non-vegan runner who ate a high calorie diet containing animal products throughout their run. 

To reiterate: 4 vegans (2 runners and 2 filming) used the same amount of land to produce the same amount of energy required as one non-vegan runner and their animal based diet.

From the largest study ever on farming and it's environmental impact by Oxford University https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food

Specifically, plant-based diets reduce food’s emissions by up to 73% depending where you live. Perhaps most staggeringly, we would require ~3.1 billion hectares (76%) less farmland. 

and according to Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares

This equates to being able to stop farming production on an area the size of Africa and if we would like, rewild it.

These stats could not be any more clearer and how our comparison of 2 vegan runners, 2 vegan film makers and the calories consumed by these four would match land use of one non-vegan runner almost exactly. Yes, you read that right, 12,000 calories (our four vegans requirements each day) on a vegan diet would require the same amount of land as 4,000 calories on a non-vegan meat eating diet.

 

How Much Water Did We Require

Water use is another environmental impact that we should consider, it is vital for our everyday life as well as for the environment and the things we did over those 4 days meant that we would have an impact/.

The food we eat has the largest footprint on water use in our daily lives, accounting for more than 90% of a humans water use coming from their diet. [20]

Vegan scenarios achieved between 22% and 70% water reduction compared to normal omnivore diet. [9]

Vegan runner would use about 1246L per day through their food consumption and everything involved in getting that food in to their stomachs.

A non-vegan runner would use 2757L per day through their food consumption.

This means that a vegan runner would use less than half (45% use) compared to a non-vegan runner.

Making the two vegan runners combined use 10% less than one non-vegan runner in terms of their water use on the planets environment each and every day during that event.

Combining us as film makers, we would bring the four of us to 3738L of water use per day, that is only 981L of more water required for four of us than a single non-vegan runner who participated in the race.

 

What About Emissions Created To and From a Running Event

At the very beginning of the article we mention that the two vegan runners we filmed lived close to the race start line and closer than anybody else who participated.

We haven't calculated in any of their transport before or after the race and compared it to the other non-vegan runners who were not local. We know that if we did the environmental impact would only worsen for the other non-vegan runner we have compared to.

But what if you wanted to dive in to the numbers involved with your own travel to and from a running race? Here we share some numbers that can hopefully shed some light on your impact as you travel to and from running events.

Your Environmental Impact of Travelling to a Running Race

If you were to consume a non-vegan diet which includes dairy milk, eggs and red meat and aim for 2000 calories in a single day, you will produce (as mentioned above) 7.14kg of co2e in one day.

If you are to race and double your requirements of calories up to 4000 calories for that day, this would equate up to 14.38kg of co2e in that single day from your diet alone on a non-vegan diet.

These numbers are based on requiring at least 4000 calories during the day and consumed before and after your race to help you fuel and aid in recovery and would probably require longer distance races to require such calories. You may not require double the calories if you are to run a local parkrun, but you might if you are running a marathon or ultra-marathon race.

The average UK petrol and diesel vehicles will create 0.170kg/co2e per kilometer [18] and with these numbers we can work out how far you can travel to a race in the average UK vehicle before your vehicles emissions will overtake that of your foods emissions.

14.38 / 0.170g co2e = 84km

The above equation is that of your daily food emissions as a non-vegan (400 calories = 14.38kg co2e) divided by the average UK vehicles emissions (0.170g) and results in you requiring to drive at least 84km to and from a race before your vehicles emissions would overtake your foods emissions.

When you are thinking about your next races travel requirements and you are not vegan, you can travel approximately 84km (52miles) before your vehicles emissions will overtake that of your diets emissions from that day.

A race 42km away would mean that your foods emissions for that day would be equal to that of your vehicles emissions on the same day, they would be split equally with 50% of your emissions going to each.

You can go one better and car-share with other runners and this will help with your vehicles and emissions output, with another runner you can share the emissions between two of you and the more people that share with you, the better that number gets.

If you were to car share with three other people (4 people in a vehicle) in the average UK car, your co2e emissions would be 42.5g of Co2e per passenger pr km.

This would make your vehicles emissions just a tiny fraction of what your daily foods emissions were if the race was just 42km away. Or you could travel up to 338km before your vehicles emissions per passenger would equal that of your foods emissions for that day.

What if You Travelled by Train to a Race

If you did, you will produce 35 g CO2e per passenger km [21] if you travel to a race using a train in the UK. That means that going by train instead of the average car, you would reduce your co2e emissions by almost 80%.

The issue with this is whether a train in the UK can get you to the race start or finish line, potentially not for most trail and ultra-marathons which start or finish away from towns or cities.

 

Other Environmental Impacts and Biodiversity Loss

There are other environmental impacts, deforestation, biodiversity loss, river pollution, ocean dead zones, plastic in our oceans, etc but the biggest that we really feel the need to shout about, is that of biodiversity loss.

Animal-agriculture and the demand of eating animals is the leading cause of biodiversity loss [15]. This means that by eating animals, you are reducing the wild encounters of animals and plant life that you will see when on a trail or ultra run.

The number one reason we love to freedive and run in the mountains is because of nature and wildlife encounters we may have.

With that in mind, let me share the current issues with biodiversity.

Biodiversity, crucial to human and planetary health, is declining faster than at any time in human history. Humanity relies on the earth’s natural systems to regulate the environment, maintain a habitable planet and produce food. Paradoxically, however, the way we have been producing food over the last 50 years has been driving biodiversity loss.  [13]

What is even more devastating, that in the last 50 years alone, far before we here at Kelp and Fern were even born, biodiversity loss, wild habitat loss has had species decline by over 41% in the last 50 years alone.

Scientists, researchers and conservationists from across the UK have announced in the latest State of Nature report that the nation's wildlife is continuing to decline at a deeply concerning rate despite efforts to reverse these trends

They found that wherever they look, from woodlands and farmland, to marine and freshwater environments, species are declining in both number and abundance as the impact of human activities are hitting hard with no sign of stopping. 

Since the 1970s, it has been shown that 41% of all UK species studied have declined. [14]

With this statement, hopefully you can see why we have included the environmental impact of our energy requirements over the four days and how what we eat is the driving issues of our environmental destruction.

Isn't this the complete opposite of what we want as trail and ultra runners, a dying natural world (of which is also our biggest carbon sink)?

 

Summaries of Environmental Impact of Vegan Runner vs Non-Vegan Runner

Some studies and research summarise environmental issues better than we ever could, so here are conclusions taken from the research we have shared above which puts our environmental impact in to just a few short sentences.

Specifically, plant-based diets reduce food’s emissions by up to 73% depending where you live. This reduction is not just in greenhouse gas emissions, but also acidifying and eutrophying emissions which degrade terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Freshwater withdrawals also fall by a quarter. Perhaps most staggeringly, we would require ~3.1 billion hectares (76%) less farmland. 'This would take pressure off the world’s tropical forests and release land back to nature,' says Joseph Poore. [10]

To conclude, this study of 34 dietary studies from around the world comparing vegan and meat eating diets, [9] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9926 the vegan diets created between 40% and 73% less green house gas emissions than a similar calorie diet which included meat. 

Moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products (table S13) (35) has transformative potential, reducing food’s GHG emissions by 6.6 (5.5 to 7.4) billion metric tons of CO2eq (a 49% reduction) [10]

“Diets rich in beef and other red meat can be bad for a person’s health. And equally [as] bad for Earth’s biodiversity… human carnivory, and its impact on land use is the single biggest threat to much of the world’s flora and fauna.” [15]

“Cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country, and it accounts for 80% of current deforestation.” [16]

“The livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species. In addition, resource conflicts with pastoralists threaten species of wild predators and also protected areas close to pastures.” [17]

 

Links and Citations

[1] https://www.conservation.org/carbon-footprint-calculator gives a reading of 0.64tonnes for the 4 days with 4 people eating vegan meals and driving less than 999 miles to the events and throughout it.

[2] http://www.ecopassenger.org/bin/query.exe/en?ld=uic-eco&L=vs_uic&OK#focus shows the van to produce 28.4kg co2e from Holyhead to Cardiff with a train being slightly more and a flight being 109kg of co2e for the journey. This is calculated with Diesel van, Euro 5 Engine and 2 passengers.

[3] https://plantprosperous.com/vegan-calculator/ 

[4] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1169-1 and Oxford Study https://www.ceu.ox.ac.uk/publications/470132

[5] https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx 250 miles, 40MPG, Diesel Van = 70kg co2e

[6] https://www.truthordrought.com/water vegan diet is 2700litres of water saved per day compared to non-vegan meat diet.

[7] https://theconversation.com/meat-free-diets-could-cut-our-water-footprint-in-half-say-scientists-102926 2,757 litres per person per day in the UK (1246L at 55% saving) 

[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372775/ carbon emissions of each diet, vegan and meat eater at 2000 calories per day.

[9] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9926

[10] https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf Oxford food environmental study 

[11] https://naturalresources.wales/about-us/area-statements/sector-specific-information/area-statements-and-farmers-foresters-and-land-managers/?lang=en#:~:text=In%20Wales%2C%20more%20than%2080,%2C%20water%20and%20air%20quality.

[12] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food

[13] https://www.unep.org/resources/publication/food-system-impacts-biodiversity-loss

[14] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/october/the-state-of-nature-41-percent-of-the-uks-species-have-declined.html

[15] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/

[16] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2373903/

[17] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/239524071_Livestock's_Long_Shadow_Environmental_Issues_and_Options

[18] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233337/carbon-footprint-of-travel-per-kilometer-by-mode-of-transport-uk/#:~:text=The%20average%20petrol%20car%20in,51.4%20g%20CO2e%20per%20km.

[19] https://senedd.wales/media/e3rigiv1/17-008-web-english.pdf and https://cdn.cyfoethnaturiol.cymru/media/684348/chapter-3-state-and-trends-final-for-publication.pdf

[20] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1109936109

[21] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233337/carbon-footprint-of-travel-per-kilometer-by-mode-of-transport-uk