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Diet Carbon Footprint

Free Diet Carbon Footprint calculator with clear step-by-step results.

About Diet Carbon Footprint

Applies published life-cycle emission factors to four food groups whose intensities differ by more than thirty-fold - roughly 30 kgCO2e per kilo for beef against 0.9 for plant foods. The intensity figure shows why the composition of a diet matters far more than its total weight.

Formulas

Weekly footprint

kgCO2e = beef x 30 + pork/poultry x 6.5 + dairy x 3.2 + plant x 0.9

Annual footprint

Tonnes = weekly kgCO2e x 52.14 / 1000

Worked example

With the default values below, Diet Carbon Footprint returns Annual dietary footprint of 2.065. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Beef and lambminimum 0 kg/week
0.5 kg/week
Pork and poultryminimum 0 kg/week
1.2 kg/week
Dairy productsminimum 0 kg/week
3 kg/week
Plant foodsminimum 0 kg/week
8 kg/week

Results

Annual dietary footprint
2.065 tCO2e
Weekly footprint
39.60 kgCO2e
Emissions per kilo of food eaten
3.12 kgCO2e/kg
Share of the footprint from meat
57.6% %

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Weekly footprint
  3. 3Annual footprint
  4. 4Annual dietary footprint= 2.065 tCO2e
  5. 5Weekly footprint= 39.60 kgCO2e
  6. 6Emissions per kilo of food eaten= 3.12 kgCO2e/kg
  7. 7Share of the footprint from meat= 57.6 %

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 3 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do the emission factors come from?

They are rounded medians from global life-cycle assessment syntheses covering farm to retail. Individual products vary widely with system, region and feed.

Does local food have a lower footprint?

Usually only marginally. Transport is typically under 10% of food emissions, so switching what you eat moves the number far more than switching where it came from.

Related Calculators

Diet Carbon Footprint – Calculate Annual dietary footprint