Environment
One of the most effective things we can do to lower our carbon footprint is to avoid all animal products.
The production of meat and other animal products places a heavy burden on the environment – from crops and water required to feed the animals to the transport and other processes involved.
The vast amount of grain feed required for meat production is a significant contributor to deforestation, habitat loss, and species extinction. In Brazil alone, the equivalent of 5.6 million acres of land is used to grow soya beans to feed farmed animals in Europe.
Considerably lower quantities of crops and water are required to sustain a vegan diet. We have a lot of power when making our everyday choices and switching to living vegan is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce our impact on the environment.
Meat and dairy production emit more nitrogen than Earth can cope with
“The overwhelming bulk of the emissions, 68 per cent, comes from crops grown to feed animals, followed by nitrogen released by the build-up and management of manure.”
New Research Says Plant-based Diet Best for Planet and People
“These links are real and strong and not just the mutterings of food lovers and environmental advocates… Twenty servings of vegetables have fewer greenhouse gas emissions than one serving of beef.”
New estimates of the environmental cost of food
“Animal product free diets, therefore, deliver greater environmental benefits than purchasing sustainable meat or dairy.”
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers
“Impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change.”
Diet and the environment: does what you eat matter?
“We found that a nonvegetarian diet exacts a higher cost on the environment… From an environmental perspective, what a person chooses to eat makes a difference.”
Climate change food calculator: What's your diet's carbon footprint?
“Meat and other animal products are responsible for more than half of food-related greenhouse gas emissions, despite providing only a fifth of the calories we eat and drink.”
Cowspiracy
Learn how factory farming is decimating the planet's natural resources – and why this crisis has been largely ignored by major environmental groups.
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers
“Impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change.”
BBC News, January 2019
“Producing a glass of dairy milk results in almost three times the greenhouse gas emissions of any non-dairy milks, according to a University of Oxford study.”
iNews, January 2019
If all of us went vegan, greenhouse gas emissions would fall by more than a third
The Guardian, December 2018
“A swathe of research released over the past year has laid bare the hefty impact that eating meat, especially beef and pork, has upon the environment by fueling climate change and polluting landscapes and waterways.”
CNN, April 2017
Go Vegan, Save The Planet: “The contribution of the livestock sector to global greenhouse gas emissions exceeds that of transportation.”
Livestock's Long Shadow
A UN report from 2006. “Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale… so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.”