Are meat substitutes really better for the environment than meat?
Meat substitutes let consumers reduce their meat intake with simple changes to their diet. But are they really better for the environment?
Eating less meat and dairy is one of the most effective things that someone can do to cut their carbon footprint.
Lots of consumers say that they’re trying.1 Polling data from the UK suggests that nearly half (44%) of consumers try to buy less meat “All the time” or “Fairly often”.2
They could switch to plant protein food such as beans, peas, and lentils. But people eat meat for other reasons: for the taste; the texture; and their familiarity with particular meals.
Meat substitutes let people reduce the impact of their diet without radical changes to the meals that they eat. Swap a beefburger for an Impossible Burger®. Or chicken for Quorn© chicken pieces.
But are they really better for the climate? They’re usually processed, need energy from manufacturing, and include ingredients that have been shipped from overseas.
This is a basic but crucial question. I thought it would be easy to find a clear answer. But I struggled to find many comparisons based on solid data. There was certainly no centralised dataset that brought them together.
So I tried to build one. You can access it here. I’ve graphed the main results below. The sources and methodologies for each are given at the end of the post.
This is a live and imperfect dataset that I’ve built from publicly available analyses: if you know of other meat substitute products that should be included, then let me know.3
The main takeaway from the data is that most meat substitutes have a lower carbon footprint than meat, and much lower than beef or lamb.
Most meat substitutes are better for the climate than meat and dairy
To compare the carbon footprint of different foods fairly we need to look at their impact across the entire supply chain.4
To do this, we compare them using life-cycle analyses (LCAs): these include not only the impacts on the farm, but also raw materials used for their production, processing, packaging, transport, and distribution.
For meat substitutes, I’ve built a database using publicly available LCAs. I’ve included full details of these analyses at the end of this post.
I’ve tried to make sure that the analyses are comparable: the stages of the life cycle that are included need to be the same, and match the life cycles used for meat and dairy products.
In the chart, I’ve shown the greenhouse gas emissions of a range of meat substitutes compared to meats, dairy, and plant products.5
Let’s compare on the basis of protein since people are often looking for high-protein alternatives to meat.
All meat substitutes have a lower carbon footprint than beef or lamb. Emissions from Quorn© products are 35 to 50 times lower than beef. Switch your beefburger for a Beyond Meat© or Impossible Burger® and you’ll cut these emissions by around 96%.
Replacing beef or lamb can make a big difference. The impact of replacing chicken – the lowest-carbon meat – is much smaller.
Lab-grown (cultivated) meat is actually worse than chicken. At the moment, at least. This is because lab-grown meat needs lots of energy.
But, unlike chicken, lab-grown meat is still young. It’s an emerging technology. We can bring its footprint down through improvements in energy efficiency, but also by decarbonising our electricity supply. We need to do this anyway if we’re going to tackle climate change. If we power lab-grown meat with renewable or nuclear electricity, it could have a much smaller carbon footprint.
We see this from the chart – for the ‘sustainable’ lab-grown meat – where the electricity is powered from solar, wind, and nuclear. In this case, it becomes one of the lowest-carbon foods.
[I’ve also crunched the numbers and graphed these products in terms of mass or calories, if you want to see how they stack up].
Meat substitutes are also lower-carbon than meat from the US or Europe
Above, we compared meat substitutes to the global average footprint for meat products.
But this probably overstates the benefits for consumers in the US, Europe, and other countries with productive farms. Beef produced in the US or Europe tends to be lower carbon than beef produced in Brazil.6
So, let’s see if meat substitutes still have a lower footprint than meat produced in rich countries. To stress-test this, for Europe, I’ve included meat products with some of the lowest emissions.7
The carbon footprint of meat substitutes is around ten times lower than beef from the US or Europe. They’re also lower than pork from either region, and chicken produced in the US. Chicken from Europe has a similar footprint as the Beyond Meat© or Impossible Burger®.
In their large global meta-analysis, Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek found that some of the lowest carbon beef in the world emitted around 10 kilograms of CO₂eq per 100 grams of protein. That’s still five times higher than the Beyond Meat© or Impossible Burger®, and ten times higher than Quorn©.
Meat substitutes tend to be better for the climate, regardless of where your beef, pork, or chicken is produced.
Companies need to do a better job of backing up their environmental claims with data
I wasn’t surprised by the results of these comparisons. I know, simply by looking at the ingredient list of meat substitutes, that they should have pretty low carbon footprints.
What I found surprising was how few companies published their environmental footprints publicly. Nearly every meat substitute brand makes claims about how much better their products are for the environment. These claims are largely true.8 But it’s painful to see them made without transparent, public analyses to back them up.
The dataset I built is imperfect and incomplete. I did the best I could with what data and reports I could find.
It shouldn’t be this way. Every claim that a brand makes should be backed up with transparent, publicly available data. Ideally, these analyses would be done by academics or a single, independent evaluator.
One downside to the rare reports that we do have is that they’re self-funded. The companies hire independent consultancies that specialise in environmental footprinting.9 There’s no reason to believe that this would bias the results. But the optics of self-funded reports don’t look great.10 It makes them easy to discredit.
Meat substitutes also use less land, making their climate benefits even greater
One final note. Most meat substitutes have lower greenhouse gas emissions than meat and dairy. But their climate benefits are even greater when we account for the fact that they use much less farmland.
To produce 100 grams of protein from beef in the US needs around 27 times as much land as the Beyond Meat© burger. Chicken and pork need around six times as much cropland for animal feed.
This land use comes at a cost: a ‘carbon opportunity cost’. If we weren’t using it for farmland we could leave it to regrow natural vegetation such as forest or wild grasslands. This would sequester carbon from the atmosphere.
To get the ‘total’ carbon footprint of foods we can combine emissions from their production and supply chain – that we looked at above – and these opportunity costs.
In a future post I’ll try to calculate what these opportunity costs are, so we can compare the total carbon footprint of meat substitutes.
Acknowledgments:
Many thanks to Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina for their feedback on this article.
Methodology and sources
This is not a final, definitive dataset. If you spot any mistakes with the data I’ve presented here, please let me know at hannah@ourworldindata.org.
For each food greenhouse gas emissions are taken directly from the underlying sources. These are usually reported in carbon dioxide equivalents (kgCO₂e) per unit mass.
For each, I have also calculated these emissions per 1000 kilocalories and per 100 grams of protein using nutritional information specific to each product.
Mycoprotein (Quorn©)
Quorn© is the leading brand that produces plant-based protein products with the core ingredient Mycoprotein.
Core ingredient(s): Mycoprotein: a fermentation-based substitute.
Impact report: It has published several life-cycle analyses of its products. The latest was conducted independently by the UK Carbon Trust.
The report is available here: Carbon Trust (2021). Quorn Footprint Comparison Report.
Boundary: Cradle-to-grave. It includes the impact of raw materials and ingredients, production, processing, distribution and transport, packaging, consumer use, and consumer waste. The inclusion of consumer waste is unlike most other LCAs. Ideally, we would remove this component to make it comparable to the other products and meats included in this analysis. Unfortunately, a stage-by-stage of emissions is not provided in the underlying report, so this exclusion is not possible.
This means the footprint of mycoprotein and Quorn© products may be overestimated compared to the alternatives. However, this does not affect the overall result: Quorn© products are already some of the lowest-carbon. If consumer waste was excluded they would be even smaller.
Geographical coverage: Based on production in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium.
Morningstar® meat substitutes
Morningstar® is one of the leading meat substitute brands in the United States. It produces a range of products from burgers and chicken patties to sausages. It is a plant-based (not fermentation or cultured) meat substitute.
Core ingredient(s): Soy protein, vegetable oils, egg whites (some products), bean, and quinoa.
Impact report: This report was conducted independently by Quantis.
The report is available here: A comparative Life Cycle Assessment of plant-based foods and meat foods. Assessing the environmental benefits of plant-based dietary choices: a comparison of meal choices, and a comparison of meat products and MorningStar Farms® veggie products.
Boundary: Farm-to-fork. It includes the impact of raw materials and ingredients, production, processing, distribution and transport, and packaging. It does not include consumer use and waste.
Geographical coverage: United States
Impossible Burger®
Impossible Burger® is one of the most popular meat substitute brands in the United States. It is a plant-based (not fermentation or cultured) meat substitute. However, some of its ingredients, such as heme, are produced via precision fermentation processes.
Core ingredient(s): Potato protein, soy protein, coconut oil, sunflower oil, heme.
Impact report: This report was conducted independently by Quantis.
The report is available here: Quantis, Sofia Khan (2019). Comparative environmental LCA of the Impossible Burger with conventional ground beef burger.
Boundary: Cradle-to-distribution. It includes the impact of raw materials and ingredients, production, processing, distribution and transport, and packaging. It does not include consumer use and waste.
Geographical coverage: California, United States
Beyond Meat©
Beyond Meat© is one of the most popular meat substitute brands in the United States. It is a plant-based (not fermentation or cultured) meat substitute.
Core ingredient(s): Pea protein, canola oil, coconut oil.
Impact report: The report is available here: Helen and Keller (2018). Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger Life Cycle Assessment: A detailed comparison between a plant-based and an animal-based protein source.
Boundary: Cradle-to-distribution. It includes the impact of raw materials and ingredients, production, processing, distribution and transport, and packaging. It does not include consumer use and waste.
Geographical coverage: Continental United States with its average electricity mix. It conducts a sensitivity analysis with different electricity mixes across the US.
Cultivated meat (lab-grown meat)
There are various companies working on the technology for cultivated meat (also known as ‘cultured meat’ or ‘lab-grown meat’).
This is not yet produced commercially or at scale.
Various studies have looked at the footprint of lab-grown meat. The latest analysis – and the one I include here – was produced by Pelle Sinke and Ingrid Odegard (2021) from CE Delft.
Sinke and Odegard (2021). LCA of cultivated meat Future projections for different scenarios.
This analysis is based on hypothetical scenarios of production at scale in 2030 from two scenarios:
Conventional energy mix, in which electricity is generated based on a global average stated policies scenario for 2030 in the World Energy Outlook, and heat is generated using natural gas;
Sustainable energy mix, in which electricity is generated using on-shore wind turbines and solar PV panels (both 50%), and heat used is geothermal.
Other studies include:
Mattick, C. S., A. E. Landis, B. R. Allenby, and N. J. Genovese. 2015. Anticipatory Life Cycle Analysis of In Vitro Biomass Cultivation for Cultured Meat Production in the United States. Environmental Science & Technology 49(19): 11941-11949.
Tuomisto, H. L., M. J. Ellis, and P. Haastrup. 2014. Environmental impacts of cultured meat: alternative production scenarios. Paper presented at Proceedings of the 9th international conference on life cycle assessment in the agri-food sector.
Tuomisto, H. L. and M. J. Teixeira de Mattos. 2011. Environmental Impacts of Cultured Meat Production. Environmental Science & Technology 45(14): 6117-6123.
Violife
Violife is a leading brand that produces various varieties of vegan cheese. That means it is a dairy, rather than meat, substitute. It is a plant-based (as opposed to fermentation or cultured substitute).
Core ingredient(s): Coconut oil
Impact report: This report was conducted independently by Quantis.
The report is available here: Quantis (2022). Violife 100% vegan alternative to cheese vs. dairy cheese in Europe, UK, US and Canada.
Boundary: Cradle-to-grave. It includes the impact of raw materials and ingredients, production, processing, distribution and transport, packaging, consumer use, and consumer waste. The inclusion of consumer waste is unlike most other LCAs. Ideally, we would remove this component to make it comparable to the other products and meats included in this analysis. Unfortunately, a stage-by-stage of emissions is not provided in the underlying report, so this exclusion is not possible.
This means the footprint of mycoprotein and Violife products may be slightly overestimated compared to the alternatives. However, these differences are likely to be small, and are unlikely to affect the overall result.
Geographical coverage: Production in the European Union, UK, United States, and Canada. The average values across these regions have been taken as the final footprint.
Meat, dairy and plant products
I provide multiple values for meat and dairy products: a global average figure, plus figures more specific to the US and Europe.
Global average: Values for meat, dairy and plant products (such as peas and soybeans (tofu) come from the meta-analysis from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018).
This dataset covers 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products. It covers around 90% of global protein and calorie consumption. This analysis covers cradle-to-distrbution. It does not include consumer waste.
Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.
US meat: Data for beef, pork, and chicken in the US is taken from the comparable life-cycle analysis used by Morningstar©. Morningstar© is a US-based company, which explains why they compare products to meat production in the US.
The underlying source of footprint data for beef comes from the analysis produced by Blonk (2014).
The underlying sources for pork and chicken are the Agri-footprint database and Eshel et al. (2014).
European meat: Data for beef, pork, and chicken in Europe comes from the comparative analysis used in footprinting reports from Quorn©. This analysis was carried out independently by the UK Carbon Trust. It draws on sources for each country from Cederberg et al. (2009), Blonk et al. (2008), Rieria et al. (2019), Audsley et al. (2009), Clune et al. (2017), and MacLeod et al. (2013).
The analysis looks at meat production in 4 European countries – the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium. I have taken the average values across these countries.
Importantly, I use the lower bound footprints for meat products, rather than the mid-point. This allows us to test if meat substitutes have a lower footprint than the most ‘sustainable’ meat production.
Of course, saying that you're trying to do this is not the same as actually doing it.
Actual sales data on meat consumption shows that meat consumption in the UK is not falling particularly quickly.
YouGov run frequent polls amongst the UK public. It asked around 2,000 adults the following question:
“How often, if ever, do you make each of the following choices when grocery shopping? Reducing my consumption of meat.”
In July 2022, 28% of respondents said “Fairly often”. A further 16% said “All the time”.
Email me at hannah@ourworldindata.org.
To be included, products need to have a publicly available, transparent life-cycle analysis.
Most of the emissions from meat and dairy production happen on the farm, which includes methane emissions from ruminant livestock such as cattle, manure, or the use of fertilizers to produce animal feed. For meat substitutes on the other hand, the main contribution stems from the production of the ingredients and energy use in the lab or in a processing plant.
Here, the global average values for meat, dairy and plant products (such as peas and soybeans (tofu) come from the meta-analysis from Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018).
This dataset covers 38,700 commercially viable farms in 119 countries and 40 products. It covers around 90% of global protein and calorie consumption.
Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.
Schmidinger, K., & Stehfest, E. (2012). Including CO2 implications of land occupation in LCAs—method and example for livestock products. The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 17(8), 962-972.
Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 360(6392), 987-992.
Data for beef, pork, and chicken in the US is taken from the comparable life-cycle analysis used by MorningStar. MorningStar is a US-based company, which explains why they compare products to meat production in the US. The underlying source of this footprint data comes from the analysis produced by Blonk (2014).
Data for beef, pork, and chicken in Europe comes from the comparative analysis used in footprinting reports from Quorn©. This analysis was carried out independently by the UK Carbon Trust. It draws on sources for each country from Cederberg et al. (2009), Blonk et al. (2008), Rieria et al. (2019), Audsley et al. (2009), Clune et al. (2017), and MacLeod et al. (2013).
The analysis looks at meat production in 4 European countries – the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium. I have taken the average values across these countries.
Importantly, I use the lower bound footprints for meat products, rather than the mid-point. This allows us to test if meat substitutes have a lower footprint than the most ‘sustainable’ meat production.
Again, I think most of the claims that I've seen from meat substitute companies are true based on the difference in the footprints of their respective ingredients compared to meats.
Most companies like to compare their footprints to the highest impact meat – beef. There, you would expect to cut emissions by more than 90%. So, claims of reductions upwards of 90% seem credible to me.
Many use the environmental sustainability consultancy, Quantis, for example.
I don't know how expensive these analyses are. Maybe their cost is one reason that so few companies do them: for small companies and start-ups that are cash-strapped, they might be low on the priority list.
Great article and research! My only gripe is that ive been thoughly indoctrinated by betteridge law of headlines, so I truly expected it to be no at this point haha
Also doesn't mean killing things..... All for the environment, but I'm sick of people acting like it's the only reason to stop eating meat