Is going vegan really better for the environment?
ENVIRONMENT
Short answer
Yes. It cuts your food-related carbon, land and water use by about 50–75% each — the largest single action an individual can take.
ENVIRONMENT
The detail
Poore & Nemecek (Science 2018, 570 studies) found a vegan diet reduces individual food-carbon emissions by 73%, land use by 76%, and freshwater use by up to 50% compared to a meat-heavy diet.
Even the least-impactful beef causes 10–100× more emissions per gram of protein than plant sources. If everyone went vegan, global farmland use could shrink by 3.1 billion hectares (an area the size of the US, EU, China and Australia combined).
Replacing just one beef burger per week with a bean-based alternative saves enough water to fill about 30 bathtubs. A 2021 study by Oxford University researchers concluded that global greenhouse gas emissions would decline by 70% if the world shifted to a plant-based diet by 2050. Reducing land use also allows for large-scale rewilding, which is essential for capturing carbon and restoring lost wildlife populations.
Source: Poore & Nemecek, Science 360, 987–992 (2018)
Newsletter
One short letter. Once a month.
A handful of recipes, a story worth your time, and one thing you can do this week. Nothing else.
We never share your email. Unsubscribe in one click.