Do you know what bananas go through before landing on the table of our homes? You may be surprised to learn what happens with your bananas before they end up sitting in the fruit bowl on your kitchen table.

Most bananas begin life in tropical countries, far away from your home, such as the Chiquita farm in Central America. Before they have ripened (while they are ‘green’), the bananas are picked and quickly packed away before being refrigerated in containers for the transport by road to ports like, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. Then they will be loaded onto wooden crates and packed into the ships that will carry them off to their various destinations around the world.

Upon arrival, big stores like WalMart will send trucks to pick up their supply of bananas. They will be exposed to cold storage and then sent into the ripening room. Once the bananas have ‘yellowed’ sufficiently and they satisfy the requirements for general sale, they will be delivered to the various store outlets. Once in the store, they will be stacked up in crates or supermarket containers until someone like you comes along and buys them, when they will be packed up in a plastic bag ready to go.

Getting our bananas from the jungles of Costa Rica into our homes uses up a lot of energy which is yet to be accurately accounted for. Chiquita Brands International Inc, one of the biggest global companies supplying fresh produce, has been working with the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics on a standardized system to measure the carbon footprint of what goes into transporting our bananas from A to B. They recently conducted a case study on the supply chain of the bananas starting from the plantation they come from (Central America) to the USA, where they are sold. Their study aims to create a tool that companies can use to efficiently calculate the energy consumption of transported products, be it by land, water or air.

This web-based tool serves as Chiquita’s comprehensive carbon footprint assessment. This assessment revealed that a large part of its carbon footprint resulted from the bananas’ packaging material. And so, Chiquita has redesigned their famous cardboard banana box and from now on will only use reusable packaging material. The carbon footprint assessment has helped Chiquita to focus its carbon improvement activities and to pave the way for energy-efficient practices that will benefit the planet.

The field of carbon footprint research remains an ongoing project for Chiquita, one that aims to standardize the environmental impact of the variables in the supply chain. However, the assessment based on carbon footprints so far has provided the initiative for Chiquita to embrace their corporate responsibility in sustainable development. The fundamental changes Chiquita have adopted include switching to reusable packaging instead of cardboard, improvement in transport efficiency, and a conscious effort aimed at reducing large amounts of CO₂ emissions. They have also taken up reforestation projects, recycling initiatives and soil fertility management programs as part of their efforts.