Meat Footprint Calculator (yearly CO₂e of the meat you eat)

Understanding the meat carbon footprint calculator — concept and principle

This calculator estimates the yearly greenhouse-gas emissions from the meat and prawns you eat, using global average emission factors from the largest food life-cycle study. It also shows what the same amount of food would emit as poultry or tofu, so you can see the effect of swaps.

Weekly grams to yearly CO₂e: with the default inputs the result is 2,064 kg CO₂e (from 57.4 kg of meat a year).

How it is calculated

Yearly emissions = grams per week × 52.18 ÷ 1,000 × factor

Factors in kg CO₂e per kg of product (Poore & Nemecek, 2018, global means):

beef from beef herds 99.48; beef from dairy herds 33.3
lamb and mutton 39.72; farmed prawns 26.87
pork 12.31; poultry 9.87; tofu 3.16

The total adds the five foods; the comparison lines multiply your total meat by the poultry or tofu factor.

The principle

A life-cycle footprint adds every stage of supply: land-use change, farming, animal feed, processing, transport, retail and packaging. Beef stands out because cattle convert feed to meat inefficiently, need a lot of land, and their digestion releases methane, a strong greenhouse gas. Beef from dairy herds has a lower factor because part of the emissions is assigned to milk. Poultry and pork convert feed more efficiently. The factors are global averages; individual farms vary widely, but even the lowest-impact beef emits more than most plant proteins.

Worked example

Default inputs: beef 300 g/week (beef herds), lamb 0, pork 400 g, chicken 350 g, prawns 50 g.

Weeks to kg: 0.05218 kg per g per week per year.
Beef = 300 × 0.05218 × 99.48 = 1,557 kg; pork = 400 × 0.05218 × 12.31 = 257 kg.
Poultry = 350 × 0.05218 × 9.87 = 180 kg; prawns = 50 × 0.05218 × 26.87 = 70 kg; lamb 0.
Total = 2,064 kg CO₂e a year from 57.4 kg of meat.
As all poultry: 57.4 × 9.87 = 567 kg; as tofu: 57.4 × 3.16 = 181 kg.

Each point is the calculator re-run with only “Beef (g per week)” changed; the gold point is the default example. Change the inputs above and this chart follows your numbers.

Beef (g per week)	Yearly footprint of your meat (kg CO₂e)
75	897
150	1,286
225	1,675
300	2,064
375	2,454
450	2,843
600	3,622

How to read the result

Beef is 300 of 1,100 grams a week here, but about three quarters of the footprint, so reducing beef has by far the largest effect. Swapping beef from beef herds for dairy-herd beef, poultry or plant proteins cuts emissions steeply.

Common mistakes

Entering cooked weights when the factors refer to the product as bought.
Ignoring meat in processed foods and meals out.
Treating the global average as the exact footprint of a local product.
Assuming local beef is always lower-carbon; transport is usually a small share.

Keep in mind: These are global average estimates with wide ranges. The result is for comparison and learning, not a certified footprint.

Frequently asked questions

What is the carbon footprint of beef?

About 99.5 kg CO₂e per kg for beef from beef herds as a global average, and about 33 kg for dairy-herd beef.

Which meat has the lowest footprint?

Of those listed, poultry, at about 9.9 kg CO₂e per kg.

Does eating local meat help?

Usually only a little, because transport is a small part of food emissions; the type of food matters most.

Sources: Poore J. & Nemecek T. (2018), "Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers", Science 360(6392):987–992 · Our World in Data, "Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product"

Checked 9 Nov 2026. Poore J. & Nemecek T. (2018), “Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers”, Science 360(6392):987–992 — greenhouse-gas emissions per kg of food product (global means), as published by Our World in Data (“Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product”).

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