Bananas: carbon footprint per kg
Live factor value
0.909 kgCO2e per kg
Source: Agribalyse (ADEME/INRAE, France), 3.1 (revision 1). Factor set agribalyse-3.1-r1.
Bananas are low-carbon despite travelling further than almost anything else in a European shop — the live figure is below. They move by sea, and container shipping is extraordinarily efficient per tonne-kilometre: the journey from the tropics adds far less to a banana's footprint than a short drive to the shop to buy it does.
This is the clearest counter-example to food-miles reasoning in the database. What matters is how a food was grown and how it travelled, not how far — and bananas grow outdoors in their natural climate with no heating, then ride a ship. Air-freighted produce is the genuine exception, and it is rarely bananas.
Worked example
A kilo of banana (about ten bananas once peeled): 1 × 0.909 = 0.9 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free food calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- Aren't imported foods worse for the climate?
- Usually not, if they arrive by sea. Shipping is highly efficient per tonne-kilometre; a heated local greenhouse can cost far more than a boat from the tropics.
- Which fruit is lowest-carbon?
- In Agribalyse the temperate outdoor fruits sit lowest — see our apples page for the other end of that comparison within the same database.