The climate case for veganism: how diet shapes our planet's future

Choosing what’s on our plates is one of the most powerful climate actions we can take. If you’re serious about climate solutions, minimizing (or ideally eliminating) animal products is non-negotiable. In this article, I'll show you why, and how.

Two caveats before we get into things:

1. I’m vegan for ethical reasons. But veganism also has health and environmental benefits. Those aren’t the main reasons I’m vegan, but they’re bonuses.

2. My expertise is in strength training and plant-based nutrition to support it. I’m not a climate or environmental expert, but I’ve interviewed (on my podcast) many people who are.

Eating a fully plant-based diet is among the top individual actions we can take to mitigate climate change

Cutting out animal products reduces greenhouse gas emissions more than living car-free. It’s so effective as a climate action because animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to climate change.

Livestock agriculture contributes roughly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, uses more land than any other human activity, and is a leading cause of water pollution and biodiversity loss.

If everyone on earth went plant-based, GHG emissions would drop by 49% and agricultural land use would shrink by 76%. That means the choices we make multiple times a day truly have incredible potential. Every time we choose plants over animals, we’re voting for cleaner air, more forests, and a climate we can actually live in.

Most GHG emissions in animal agriculture come from two things: enteric (intestinal) methane emissions (a.k.a. cow farts and burps!), and the inefficiencies of feeding crops to animals, which wastes a large proportion of caloric energy and protein.

Check out these stats:

• One Cornell University analysis estimated that the grain fed to U.S. livestock each year could feed an additional 800 million people if it were eaten directly by humans.
  

• Producing 1 gram of protein from beef or lamb uses between 50 and 100 times more land than producing 1 gram of protein from legumes like peas or soy.
  

• The lowest-emission animal products (like chicken) have between 2 and 6 times higher GHG emissions per calorie than grains, legumes, and tubers.

The least sustainably produced plant-based foods are better on all climate-related metrics than the most sustainably produced animal based foods. 

So your hothouse vegetables, fruit flown in from across the globe, and your delicious highly processed plant-based treats with 17 ingredients are all better in terms of climate change than the local chicken or backyard eggs your friend just bought at the farmer’s market. How can this be?

First of all, transportation accounts for only a small portion of a food’s overall emissions. Production is much more important. In the backyard egg example, chickens produce manure that emits nitrous oxide — a greenhouse gas almost 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

And as always, feed conversion is inefficient: you’re using calories from grains to produce fewer calories and grams of protein in eggs.

“Grass-fed” and “regenerative grazing”

I started my podcast 7 years ago to bust health, fitness, and nutrition myths. When I discuss diet and climate change, I often come across the terms “regenerative grazing” and “grass-fed”. Here’s some myth-busting for you:

“Regenerative grazing” and “grass-fed” are marketing terms that are basically just fancy ways to say “pay more for beef and feel slightly less guilty about it”. The meat and dairy industry says these things improve soil health, enhance biodiversity, and increase the resilience of grasslands, but the research does not back that up.

Dr. Julie Sinistore is an expert in Life Cycle Assessment and carbon footprinting. She has a PhD in Biological Systems Engineering a background in agroecology. She also worked on the GHG Protocol, a globally recognized set of standards and tools for measuring, managing, and reporting emissions.

She told me:

• If cattle were a nation, they would have the 3^rd  highest GHG emissions of any country in the world.
  

• Grass-fed and regenerative cattle actually use more land and water than feedlot cattle. Grass-fed cattle produce 3 times more methane than cows fed grains, and methane is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
  

• Grass-fed cattle gain weight more slowly (and reach a lower slaughter weight) than grain-fed cattle. Thus, they take longer to raise and produce less meat.

“Grass-fed” and “regenerative grazing” are greenwashing terms used to sell products, not scientific concepts supported by peer-reviewed evidence.

More myth-busting: Local does not always mean climate-friendly

Many people focus on eating locally as a way to reduce their carbon footprints. This might help, but remember that transportation accounts for only a small fraction of a food's total carbon footprint.  Eating locally sometimes involves higher greenhouse gas emissions than eating imported food, depending on what food you’re eating.

In most cases, imported, plant-based foods are far better for the climate than local, animal-based foods.

For example, locally-raised beef in Canada has much higher emissions per kilogram than lentils or tofu imported from across the globe. You'd have to ship a kilo of dried peas around the globe 100 times until it reached the same emissions as a kilo of beef.

If we want climate-friendly food systems, it’s not where our food comes from that matters most — it’s what we produce and how we produce it. To reduce your carbon footprint, choose the plant-based option, even if it’s not local. It’s a simple action. We don’t need complicated technology or billion-dollar investments to start. We just need more lentils and fewer steaks on our plates.

So if plant-based choices are better for the climate, let’s look at farms themselves, and growing food without animals. Do fully vegan farms exist? Yes. Do they require systemic change to become mainstream? Also yes. I’ll give you a quick overview of the research and interview rabbit hole I’ve gone down recently.

Animal-free farming systems

Farming without any animal inputs is called stock-free farming. The progress here is inspiring; we already have farms proving this can be done.

George Monbiot is a journalist and food grower in the UK. He farms without any animal inputs.

I’d highly recommend his book Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet if you’re interested in climate-friendly food production.

The Tolhurst Organic farm in England is a notable example of a commercial farm that has operated without any animal inputs for 39 years. Recently I interviewed the owner, Iain Tolhurst. No manure, no animal inputs, and yet his soil health, biodiversity, and yields rival those of conventional farms. Agricultural ministers from 3 different countries have visited his farm to learn about his systems.

His farm’s carbon footprint is the same as a single average house in the UK, yet he produces 120 metric tonnes of vegetables each year on 19 acres.

In climate impact assessments, completely plant-based agricultural systems come out ahead of small-scale animal-inclusive systems (mostly due to avoiding methane, and optimizing fertilizer use with precise applications and no run-off from manure). But being able to operate a fully plant-based system does require systemic changes (crop rotation methods, composting infrastructure, food distribution systems).

The good news? We don’t have to wait for the entire system to change. Each of us can start making a difference right now by choosing plant-based foods. Iain Tolhurst told me, “The system won’t change until consumer behaviours and demands change.” That’s where we come in.

 

What do I do next? How do I go vegan?

If you're not yet vegan and want to take the leap (or at least start eating more plant-based meals), I have one practical tip and one mindset tip for you.

Practical: Start with veganizing your breakfast. Just focus on that. Once you have some great go-to options, veganize your lunches. Then dinners. It might take weeks or months to go plant-based, but that’s OK. Keep it simple. Peanut butter or avocado on toast. Oatmeal with fruit. Soy milk in your coffee.

Mindset: Focus on addition, not subtraction.Rather than thinking only about what you’re cutting out, explore what you’re adding — new foods, new flavours, new skills. It’s a chance to expand your plate, not shrink it. Before I went vegan, I had no idea what teff, seitan, wakame, yuba, or amaranth were. Now they’re just regular ingredients.

Some people ask why I don’t just recommend eating less meat and dairy, instead of going fully vegan. Reducing your animal product consumption will absolutely make a positive impact — but eliminating them completely is what makes the biggest difference. It’s like saying, “For the health of your lungs, try smoking only 3 cigarettes a day, instead of the whole pack.” Is a decrease going to make a difference? Yes. Is it going to make the most positive impact? No.

Don’t let the idea of perfection stop you from taking action, though. I know some folks say, “I could never go vegan because of cheese.” Well then, go vegan except for cheese. Every plant-based meal counts, but being 100% plant-based is the most effective dietary shift for fighting climate change.

I’m happy to help. You can contact me any time in any format (email, social media, corner me at the grocery store, send a smoke signal) and I’ll help you out.

If you take just one thing away from what I’ve shared today, make it this:

In the vast majority of cases, the least-sustainably produced plant foods contribute fewer total greenhouse gases than the most sustainably-produced animal products.

Changing what we eat isn’t easy, but neither is living on a dying planet. Eating fewer (or no) animal products won’t solve everything — but eating them like there’s no tomorrow is a pretty good way to make sure there isn’t one. There’s still time to choose differently, and we can start with what’s on our plates.

References

Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States (PNAS)

Environmental Impacts of Food Production (Our World in Data)

Interview with George Monbiot: ‘On a vegan planet, Britain could feed 200 million people’ (The Guardian)

Unholy Cow (George Monbiot)

Climate change, industrial animal agriculture, and the role of physicians – Time to act (ScienceDirect)

Farming through natural systems with Iain Tolhurst MBE of Tolhurst Organics (Kent Wildlife Trust)

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