Photo: Lars P. via Flickr, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
A major new study from the University of Oxford has found that vegan diets have just a quarter of the climate impact of diets high in meat, producing 75% less greenhouse gas emissions and using 75% less land.
The research, published today in Nature Food, looked at the real diets of more than 55,000 people in the UK and matched them with environmental data from more than 38,000 farms in over 100 countries. That means the results reflect what people actually eat, and how differently food is produced around the world.
High meat eaters (more than 100g a day) came out worst on almost every measure. Compared to them, vegan diets caused:
75% less greenhouse gas emissions and land use, 73% less water pollution, 66% less biodiversity loss and 54% less water use.
Even eating a little less meat made a difference. Oxford found differences of at least 30% between low and high meat eaters on most of the indicators.
Lead author Professor Peter Scarborough, from Oxford's Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said:
Our dietary choices have a big impact on the planet. Cherry-picking data on high impact plant-based food or low impact meat can obscure the clear relationship between animal-based foods and the environment.
Cutting down the amount of meat and dairy in your diet can make a big difference to your dietary footprint.
So much for the claim that your oat milk is secretly worse than a steak. The study accounted for where and how food is produced, and plant-based diets still won by a mile. Yale Environment 360 and the Irish Times both led with the same headline number.
This isn't the first time Oxford has crunched these numbers. Back in 2016 Oxford researchers found that a global switch to vegan diets could save 8 million lives by 2050 and slash emissions, and in 2019 37 scientists behind the EAT-Lancet diet said the world must halve red meat. Earlier this year German meat consumption hit a record low and Veganuary passed 700,000 sign-ups.
If you're vegan, you're already doing more for the planet than you probably realize.