Sustainability has a natural fit within home economics as it is about good management of resources
such as water, energy, and food. The energy footprint is often used to measure how conscientious we
are about energy use, but a food footprint is also important in supporting sustainability. For example,
in Australia we throw out a fifth of the food that we buy. The amount of water needed to grow this is
equivalent to what people in Sydney and Melbourne consume in one year.
Home economics teachers have a critical role in providing skills and knowledge for students to feed
themselves without starving the planet of resources. Consumption practices impact on energy use in
many ways from production to disposal.
Consumption processes consist of: