I wrote this article for Kurzgesagt. Please keep in mind that these reflections consider solely the environmental impact of animal products… Once you take the ethical aspect into account, things may turn into different perspectives. At least for me, they do!

In summer 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report written by 107 experts from 52 countries (1). This report was entitled “Climate Change and Land” and displayed a comprehensive overview of what looks to be the biggest challenge facing humanity: the global climate crisis. One of the solutions proposed in the report was that a shift towards plant-based diets would help to both mitigate and adapt to climate change. But food like meat and cheese have been strongly rooted in our cultures for centuries, have shaped our regional identities … and are rather delicious if you ask most people. So, is it really worth giving up food derived from animals in a bid to stop global warming? I like getting to the heart of matters, so I asked myself: “Should we all be vegan?

Consuming meat harms the planet

Let’s face it, most of us find meat, cheese, eggs or even gelatinous gummy bears difficult to resist. Yet, a small fraction of the world has decided to do without these foods and has adopted a plantbased diet. In other words: they are vegan (2). A study led in Germany (3) revealed that people adopting a vegan diet have three main motives: morality and ethics (90%), personal well-being and health (70%), and environment (47%). Animal-welfare is for me the number one concern and Kurzgesagt has already covered it in previous videos (here & here), while the impact of veganism on health is still an ongoing debate within the scientific community. But what about the environmental motive: is keeping livestock really so bad for our planet? In short: YES.

In other videos, Kurzgesagt explained how meat and dairy industries are environmentally harmful. In a nutshell, farm animals that are bred to be consumed require vast amounts of food and water, whilst simultaneously contributing little to our daily calorific intakes. Another point is that land expansion for the meat industry is the number one cause of deforestation. This is not only dramatic for biodiversity, but also because deforestation releases a gigantic amount of CO2 into the atmosphere that escalates global warming. In fact, if tropical tree deforestation were a country, it would rank 3rd in CO2 emissions, only topped by China and the US (4; 5). Not to mention burps and farts from ruminants. As funny it may sound, they are charged in methane, a gas 86 times more potent than CO2 when it comes to the greenhouse effect. In short, the list of reasons why the meat and dairy industries are unsustainable is pretty long. However, it is tricky to grasp to what extent they are unsustainable. Several studies analyzed different diets integrating criteria like greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and ecological impact (6; 7). Scientists confirmed that the consumption of meat strongly correlates with environmental impact. Conversely, vegan diets had the smallest carbon footprint on average, causing two times fewer CO2-equivalent emissions than that of meat lovers.

Veganism may have an unexpect impact

So it seems meat is a long-term sacrifice for very short-term gains. At first sight, one could think that the solution is pretty simple: animal farming is bad for our planet, so let’s simply stop it and all become vegan. But is it realistic? Would a vegan world be sustainable? Another scientific study (8) also analyzed the impact of different diets and came to the same conclusion, except that something very interesting stood out: some vegans’ diets had in fact an even worse impact on the environment than that of most meat-eaters. If veganism is overall better for the environment, how can some individuals’ plant-based diets come along with such big environmental footprints and does it reflect the limitations of veganism?

Let’s now imagine a planet where everyone is vegan. Beyond the obvious benefits of stopping animal farming, there are also the not-so-charming consequences that are somewhat less evident. It is important to keep in mind that animal products are not simply removed from vegan diets, they are replaced by other products that provide enough nutrients to remain healthy. In a vegan world the production of fruits, vegetables, nuts and meat substitutes would vastly shoot up. Yet many of these food products are unfortunately not so eco-friendly and come with a heavy price, and this is the Achilles heel of some vegans’ diets. For instance, many fruits are imported to Europe and the US by air to fill gaps left when local production is out of season or simply because these fruits are only produced in tropical regions. Some other fruits require huge amounts of water or cooling facilities for their long-term conservation, leading to a higher carbon footprint per kilogram of food (7; 9; 24). And other foods like avocados or mangos combine all these factors and turn out to be quite disastrous for the environment. While 1 kg of avocado requires around 800 liters of water (10), it is mainly grown in areas where water is rare, leading on the top of this to societal and political crises. Without carefully considering where our food comes from and how it is grown, fruits and vegetables can have unintended consequences sometimes even greater than that of local poultry meat (16).

Nuts also take more than their fair share of environmental resources. Some of the most commonly consumed nuts like cashews, almonds or walnuts also require a huge amount of water: more than 4000 liters of fresh water for every kilogram of shelled cashew nuts (7). As more and more people look to reduce their meat consumption, meat substitutes are also gaining in popularity. These are often made from soy, like tofu and tempeh. Yet soy, is the second largest agricultural drive of deforestation worldwide after beef (11; 12). Nonetheless, it’s important to mention that the vast majority of soy is actually used as feed in the meat industry. Another popular meat substitute grown from fungi, mycoproteins, is praised for its nutritional properties. Yet its production comes along with surprisingly high CO2-equivalent emissions, overall similar to that of chicken or pork meat (13). However, this is not the case for all meat substitutes, as the carbon footprint of some plant-based burgers are 20 times smaller than their beef equivalent (21; 22).

In brief, it is very complicated to integrate all these parameters and predict the real effect of a shift towards plant-based diets on the environment. Studies predicted results ranging from mitigated to extremely positive (14; 6; 15; 17; 18). Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear that veganism will not solve the climate crisis alone; it must come along with responsible behaviors. This raises the question of whether the problems do not simply dwell in our global food industry rather than in meat itself. Are animal products necessarily unsustainable? Can we produce meat in a sustainable way? Are there other alternatives?

You may improve your environmental footprint with simple actions

All animal farming industries are not equivalent when it comes to environmental impact (7). In fact, beef has a disproportionate impact: for equal weights, beef alone has a bigger impact than lamb, sheep, poultry, pigs, fish and prawns combined. On the other hand, poultry and pork individually emit less CO2-equivalent than palm oil, chocolate or coffee; eggs less than olive oil, and milk less than rice. Also important to mention: cheese is 3 times more harmful than pork. Quitting beef appears then an easy first step toward sustainability, while the efforts of giving up on eggs and milk will help comparatively little.

Besides, new technologies like cultured meat grown in laboratories are booming. In just over a decade, cultured meat is about to become competitively priced in the market, while the room for optimization of the price and of the environmental aspect is huge. More on this in Kurzgesagt’s previous videos on meat. Another exciting approach is insect farming. Rearing insects emits fewer greenhouse gases, requires less water and land (19), and can be a solid source of proteins, vitamins, fibres, and minerals. However, a few important questions are left dangling today, like how to feed the insects or how to power heating and cooling facilities. Another apparent impactful move could be to favor game, which does not require any land nor feed, limiting its impact. But it does not take long to understand that hunting will never cover our current demand in meat and a change in our diets will be necessary.

This illustrates that after all, turning to plant-based diets would only be shifting the environmental problems posed by animal farming unless we change our lifestyles at the same time. Limiting food waste should be a focus, as it represents nearly one quarter of all the food-related greenhouse gas emissions (20). Instituting special taxes on meat (21) and launching awareness campaigns to educate consumers on the average environmental impact of products (7) are other levers that may help to limit the impact of animal farming without entirely giving up on meat and dairy products.

So whether you are vegan, flexitarian or simply willing to reduce the impact of what you eat, maybe think twice before ordering an avocado burger with a mycoprotein steak and an almond-milk cappuccino.

(One more time, please keep in mind that these reflections consider solely the environmental impact of animal products… Once you take the ethical aspect into account, things may turn into a different perspective. At least for me, they do!)

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