Life cycle assessment of chocolate Easter bunnies: The darker, the better
Published: Saturday, Mar 23rd 2024, 05:00
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Which chocolate Easter bunnies are the most environmentally friendly? A Swiss life cycle assessment consultancy has found that the darker the chocolate, the better it is for the environment. The decisive factor in chocolate is the content of milk powder and cocoa butter, as the Managing Director of ESU Services in Schaffhausen, Niels Jungbluth, explains. Dark chocolate contains no milk powder and only a little cocoa butter.
ESU analyzed three 100-gram bunnies made of dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. According to the analysis, the lightest bunny pollutes the environment with climate-damaging greenhouse gases to the same extent as what comes out of the exhaust from an average car journey of 1.7 kilometers.
The milk chocolate bunny corresponds to a journey of 1.5 kilometers. Easter bunnies made from dark chocolate with a cocoa content of around 48 percent, on the other hand, only have the same impact on the environment as an average car journey of 900 meters.
It was tested how much climate-damaging greenhouse gases such as CO2 are produced throughout the entire production and supply chain of the ingredients. This is known as the CO2 footprint. The entire "life cycle" of an Easter bunny was considered, from the cultivation of the ingredients to transportation, production, sale and transport to the consumer, as well as the disposal of the packaging. The company assumed twelve grams of packaging per bunny.
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